Crucial Track for October 23, 2025
"Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon
A song from college or early adulthood. - Graceland is on my all time top 10 list and this is one of my favorite songs from the album. Imagine how shocked i was to find out just this year that Paul Simon basically just ripped this off from Los Lobos. It's a batshit crazy story. Although Paul is a certifiable genius, he was a bit of a jerk in this case. Whatever. It's a great tune!
Organizational Therapy

I've never read Marie Kondo's book on organizing, the one where she talks about only keeping those things that "spark joy" in you. Furthermore, I've never been to the container store. When it comes to tasks like finding cleaning supplies or, God forbid, first aid stuff, you'd better ask Wonder Woman, because I don't have a clue. I occasionally sort out my collection of cables, keyboards, old mice, and external hard drives, but I'm not anal about that stuff.
I needed to preface this post with that information so that I sound less crazy from here on out. I am, in fact, manageably crazy, and the one activity that I find soothing like no other is collecting and organizing anything with words and language. I either own or have owned a massive collection of comic books, baseball cards, movies, music, and books—the latter three as analog and digital media.
My brother and I started with comics in the early '70s when you could buy the latest Batman or Superman (Action and Detective) comics for fifteen cents. We branched out to both Archie and Richie Rich as well but decided to avoid the Marvel Comic Universe completely. There was no Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, or Fantastic Four for us. That stuff was modern and gimmicky, and we wanted a collection with historical substance. We had hundreds and hundreds of comics organized by title and date. We regularly begged our folks to take us to the used bookstore some thirty miles from home whenever we had any money. My brother, who just turned 59, still has the damn things. I gave up my share in an extortion scheme he concocted after catching me smoking while we were in middle school.
I collected baseball cards twice, once in middle school and again in my twenties when I had disposable income and there was a sudden glut of companies making cards after decades of it being a single-player market. If I hadn't grown disgusted with the sport because of doping, I'd probably still be buying boxes of cards to this very day. I had some really nice older cards of Hall of Fame players like Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle. I kept them all organized by manufacturer, year, team, and player. I owned a specially made tray nearly three feet square that allowed me to sort and organize hundreds of cards at one time. In the end, I gave them away for next to nothing just to get them out of the house, but the person who bought them still has the whole lot.
Like a lot of Gen X kids, I got a ton of records from Columbia House when they'd send a 14-year-old 11 albums for a penny and the promise to buy more in the future. And because I'm Gen X, I got to buy the very same recordings on cassette and on CD; thus, my rationalization to go absolutely nuts when Napster and BitTorrent became popular at the advent of the broadband era. I have nearly 40K songs in my digital collection, and every single one of them is properly named and tagged with the artist, album, track number, and release date. Some recordings, like concerts and bootlegs, are hard to classify, but I still have a system. I have a pretty good idea of almost everything I own. It all eventually gets played.
My latest passion is electronic books, mostly in EPUB format, although I do have several hundred audiobooks too. For years, I dutifully paid Amazon for the rights to read books on my Kindle. As more and more stories came out about how horrible Amazon is to work for, I became less inclined to spend money with them. Then they took the step of preventing people from downloading books they had already purchased. They had the ability to totally remove my access to thousands of dollars' worth of books whenever they felt like it. Fuck that.
I use a couple of sources that allow me to be anonymous while downloading practically any book I want. I still buy books at the bookstore to support some writers, but my complete collections of Raymond Chandler and Robert A. Heinlein aren't making money for their heirs. I have thousands more books than I will ever be able to read, but I keep downloading more. I love having a library that is so big and well-organized that I can suggest something to just about anyone based on their interests. I send books on religion to my sister, who is a pastor, and books on birdwatching to my brother, who is a nature guide. I send my art-loving son books on Jackson Pollock and Renoir and my daughter books on just about anything.
Every book in my collection is labeled with its title, author, publisher, release date, a synopsis, classification tags, and an image of its cover. That makes it easy for me to tell you that I have:
- 111 books about baseball history
- 32 biographies of Bob Dylan
- 135 cookbooks
- 43 books about World War II in Europe
- 24 books about World War II in the Pacific
- 334 books on science
- 1,187 books on science fiction
I read a lot of books, obviously, but I also spend a lot of time reading book reviews and chatting with other bibliophiles about what we've read. And, like I am with music, I know what books I have and what I'm looking for. It's not just mindless hoarding of digital media for its own sake. What fun would that be?
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Crucial Track for October 18, 2025
"Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles
What's a song that instantly makes you smile? Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles - One of the many benefits to being a Beatles fan, is that you get this huge catalog of instantly recognizable, iconic songs. I'm so glad I got to live on the same planet s these guys. Hearing the intro to this song is such a treat, nay, a privilege.

Good Blue Ridge Mountain Morning To You
Good Blue Ridge Mountain Morning To You! The first signs of autumn crispness in the mountain air are so welcome after a long hot summer.
Late Summer Day on a Carolina Bay
Eastern North Carolina is dotted with hundreds of mysterious lakes and ponds known as the Carolina Bays. They are all elliptically shaped and oriented along the same directional axis. Cypress trees like this are common. The water ranges from tannic rich resembling soy sauce to crystal clear.
Scene from the Carolina Coastal Plains
Today we see these tobacco barns slowly falling apart as we drive through Eastern North Carolina. The day is coming when they will all be gone and another connection to the place we were born will be lost. Good riddance? Probably, but what is part of our past is still part of us.
Crucial Track for August 21, 2025
"Don't Do It" by The Band
What is a song that instantly energizes you? It's gotta be Don't Do It by The Band. Oh man, a bass line from Rick opens the tune, these guys bring in a horn section, then Levon starts singing and I can't sit still. I'm not a Robbie Robertson fan, but I'll give him some grudging respect for the lyrics. IDGAF if this song is over 50 years old. It's got what it takes to bring the boogie!

Ocean Isle Beach, NC at Dawn
This photo captures so many classic elements of the Carolina coast: the fishing pier, the sun rising over the Atlantic, the shrimp trawler that’s been at it all night and the big flock of shore birds. Y’all need to come see us and get some of this goodness! (Ocean Isle Beach, Brunswick County, NC)
Crucial Track for August 18, 2025
"Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen
Share a song that changed your perspective on music. I was only 10 when Springsteen released Born to Run and although I remember when he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek at the same time, I didn't become a real fan until high school and the release of The River. I've been a fan of his music ever since.My old man hated this song because of the line "I got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, I took a wrong turn and I never went back". I knew he wasn't singing that line as something to be proud of. I got it. That whole album spoke to me. It still does.

How My Self-Hosted Server Fits My Mac Life
When I retired in February, one of the first things I did was set
up a home lab using the various components that I've been socking away
for years. For me, 2025 has been the year that I've left the tech giants
in my rearview mirror. To that end, I wanted to experiment with Linux,
even though I don't plan to abandon the Mac or iOS as platforms. After a
couple of months fooling around with Ubuntu on an old Lenovo ThinkPad, I
decided to build a self-hosted server using the same computer and a bevy
of external hard drives that I had accumulated.
I solicited advice on Mastodon and ended up going with Unraid, a NAS-based operating system based on Ubuntu. I know someone who has an Unraid server, and that played a part in my decision. Unraid is not free. I spent $49 for a license that allowed me to use six connected hard drives, and after three months, I upgraded the license so that I can use an unlimited amount of hard drives. Shortly after that, I ditched the old ThinkPad in favor of a new mini PC with USB 3.2 and a faster CPU. It was $150 for a machine with 16GB of RAM, a 512 GB HD, dual ethernet ports, 2 HDMI ports (although I run it headless) and four USB 3.2 ports. I oped to immediately replace the hard drive with a 2 TB model. Much to my surprise, the computer had space and a connection for a 2.5 inch SATA drive, so I threw in a 1 TB model I had laying around in there.
My external storage consists of three 8 TB drives (all purchased since I started self-hosting), a 1 TB and 4TB SSDs, a 3 TB drive left over from the days when I took a thousand shots a day on my DSLR and a lonely old 2 TB external drive that lived most of it's life as a Time Machine drive. My future plans involved larger drives, housed in four drive bays with USB 3.2 connectivity. I've become an expert in finding good deals on hard drives.
I didn't have to buy a new domain name for my server. I just use subdomains from one I already won. Cloudflare takes care of all the networking and routing under their generous free program. I set up a tunnel to my server and now adding access to a new self hosted dervice takes about two minutes to make live.
Another free service that's proven invaluable is Tailscale, which allows you to create a private mesh network, assigning an IP address to your devices in a way so that even your hundreds of miles away, you can still make connections and use resources as if your two devices were sitting on the same desk.
My Services
Immich - Since I removed my photos from Apple, Google and Amazon, I needed a way to share them with my family over the Internet. I also needed a system that my wife and I could use together. Immich is a powerful photo management solution with excellent facial recognition and object identification when searching and it all lives on your computer. I have back up copies of my photos on a cloud server from a European company. Koofr. Immich has iOS and Mac app, although the latter only works on Apple silicon.
Audiobookshelf - Although I am no longer contributing to the enrichment of Jeff Bezos, I do want to have access to the audiobooks I purchased from Audible. I used the free app, Libation to liberate my library. It downloads all your books and removes the DRM that prevents you from with Amazon's hand in your pocket. Now I have a self hosted audiobook library, complete with metadata where I can stream of download books. If I want to gives access to antone else, it's easy to create an account to give them access too. There are various iOS apps compatible with Audiobookshelf.
Calibre-Web - Although you can no longer download the books you've purchased for your Kindle, if you have copies you saved befor April, 2025, you can strip the DRM from them tooand make your whole library available to you from any Internet connected reading device from your own server, wherever you are. You can use the Mac or iOS version of Calibre, or you can import books into the Mac and iOS program.
Plex - If you've obtained movies and TV shows from various sources (no judgement zone), you can create a media server on your computer than you can access from your SmartTV, streaming device, iPad or computer. You don't even have to be at home. If you want to give access to those resources to other people, you can do that as well. Plex works best when you buy the $40 a year Plex pass.Oh, and Plex also can display your photos and give you access to your music collection. If you still have all those ripped CDs and the spoils of the Napster days, you can ditch Apple Music and Spotify.
Copyparty - Although i still use (European based) cloud storgae, it serves primarily as an offsite backup. My day to day work is done on files that live on my self hosted server. Copyparty is an app that runs on my server and is accessible through any browser or file manager you can think of. It handle uploads and downloads, plays music and displays videos to boot.
The ARR Stack - For those sailing the high seas to obtain their media, there are self hosted apps like Radarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr, Huntarr and many more. The ARR stack automatically searches for titles you want, downloads them, adds metadata, subtitles and trailers and makes them available in Plex or Jellyfin. I'm so tired of contributing the the enrichment of billionaires, that after a more than 20-year absence, I have unashamedly returned to the seas myself. Arghhh!!
Playing With My Macro Lens
I love taking bug pictures with my macro lens. Close up, all bugs look like aliens determined to take over the world!
Crucial Track for August 10, 2025
"Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud, Pt. 1" by James Brown
Share a song that captures the feeling of being proud. - I'm going back to the James Brown well for the second time this week. To me, the song that immediately sprang to my mind was "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," and one of my favorite movie scenes ever. It was in the movie Conrack about the year that author Pat Conroy spent teaching at an all black school on Yamacraw Island, South Carolina. In the movie, Conroy (played by Jon Voight before he went MAGA) leads his pupils in a run down the beach, all of them singing "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud,".

Chair Reserved for the President
If Donald Trump ever shows up at my favorite coffee shop, we’ve created a special chair, just for him (Photo by me, on an iPhone.)
Lake Mattamuskeet Sunrise
Good morning from Lake Mattamuskeet, located on the inner coast of North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. It is 50,000 acres but you could walk across it, since it never gets any deeper than four feet. It’s one of the best winter birdwatching sites in the world with thousands of migratory species congregating here on their way further south. We crewed for an ultra-marathon held her annually. #ultrarunning
Crucial Track for August 9, 2025
"California Stars" by Billy Bragg & Wilco
What's a song you'd want to hear while stargazing?
California Stars by Billy Bragg and Wilco
When Woody Guthrie's surviving children picked Billy Bragg and Wilco to interpret and record songs that Woody wrote but never performed, they made the perfect choice. The two Mermaid Avenue albums are among my most treasured. They embody Woody's artistry, his restless spirit and his genius..

Crucial Track for August 8, 2025
"I Drink" by Mary Gauthier
What song makes you want to forgive someone? - It's almost impossible to explain the compulsion to drink that active alcoholism causes. It's pathological, not logical. Presented with a mile-long list of reasons not to, an alcoholic who isn't in recovery will always choose the bottle. This song by Mary Gauthier includes the line "Birds fly, fish swim, I drink" which perfectly captures the nature of a real drunk. It's been nearly 17 years since I had my last drink, but there are plenty of stark reminders not to judge those still trapped in addiction.

A View from the Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a national treasure, with views like this every couple of miles or so. I’ve ridden my bike on it, driven it many times and hiked along it’s entirety. This photo was taken on the way to Linville Gorge, NC.
Mt. Katahdin, The Northern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail
Today’s anniversary pic. Our thruhike of the #AppalachianTrail was only halfway done when we summitted Mt. Katahdin. We started at Harper’s Ferry, WV. We returned there a couple of days after this and started our southbound journey to Georgia, another 100 plus miles.
Crucial Track for July 29, 2025
"I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown & The Famous Flames
What song makes you want to dance alone in your room? James Brown had a tough retirement, there is no doubt. For many years though, he was the epitome of energy and hustle. He was unapolgetically Black and Proud and man, what a creative force. It's tough for me to dance these days, arthritis and other old man shit has me all janked up, but hearing the horns of The Famous Flames and James unmistakable voice gives me the chills and wee bit of energy.

St. John' s Episcopal Church
The distictive twin steeples of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, NC against a bright summer sky.
Crucial Track for July 23, 2025
"The Ballad of the Green Berets" by SSgt. Barry Sadler
What's a song you associate with your hometown? Although my hometown was founded in the pre-colonial era and has a rich history, we are know for one thing, and that is our close ties to the American war machine, specifically the Special Forces command and the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division. Kids around here grow up to the sound of artillery and the sight of paratroopers falling from the sky. I saw a big jump last week over Sainte-Mère-Eglise drop zone. Barry Sadler was an active duty Green Beret when he recorded this song in the 1960s. He lived in the same neighborhood as my high school girlfriend, about one mile from the Ft. Bragg gate.

Kennebec River Canoe Ferry
One of the iconic experiences of the #AppalachianTrail is the canoe ferry across the Kennebec River. There’s even a white blaze painted on the side. Back in the day you had to ford it but the construction of a dam upstream ended that. Sudden releases of water cause the river level to increase two to four feet within minutes. No thanks. #hiking
The Bigelow Mountains of Southern Maine
I’ve got fond memories of the a hard day in southern Maine on the #AppalachianTrail. It’s the anniversary of our last day in the Bigelow Mountains. It took is 9 hours to go 10 miles. We camped in Stafford Notch, as we were too tired to push on to the next shelter, These were the last 4K-footers before Katahdin. #hiking



Climbing Bald Pate Mountain
I was so glad that we were able to climb Blad Pate Mountain on a dry day, having heard horror stories of how treacherous it could be on a wet day. I love hiking southern Maine, despite the rugged conditions. It’s one of the most beautiful places in America. #Hiking #AppalachianTrail
Paddling Lake Rim
Paddling on a lake my grandfather helped to construct while in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the depression. The state has a fish hatchery and a fishing school for kids there. Hopefully MAGA won’t defund it after all these years.
True Confessions - My Life on the High Seas

Those of us whose online life began with 2400 bps modems or slower remember what life was like when viewing an image online meant downloading it line by line over a 10- or 15-minute period. One image. The early editions of CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL were all text-based, as were local BBSs. When the real Internet, the kind you access through a browser, or rather through Netscape 1.0, became available, for me in 1996, most of us had 14.4 modems; we quickly upgraded to 28.8 and then 56.6 bps. When things were still super slow, I remember downloading Netscape 2.0 like it was the birth of another child. It was about 6 MB in size, and it took 45 minutes of "NOBODY CAN USE THE PHONE." I paced back and forth outside on my lawn, smoking cigarettes and trying to imagine what the new web would look like. Eventually, web pages became slightly more graphical, but video, usually watched on something called RealPlayer, was still out of the question for all but the most patient or porn-hungry.
We got broadband at work before I had it at home. I'd just moved from the factory floor at a Westinghouse Electric factory to the front office to start a new position as a technical writer with a new Pentium computer, a $5,000 color printer, Corel Draw, and a Kodak digital camera that took photos on a small floppy disk. I also had access to a ZIP drive which featured removable media in the form of 100 MB disks. I bought one for home too so I could take files back and forth. Not business files, but stuff I could download at lightning speed at work.
In 1999, I was one of the first people on the beta installation of broadband in my community, having signed up two years prior on the waiting list. As a reward for waiting, I got my first six months free. At this point, I became the biggest outlaw I have ever been in my life. I lived an existence of pure piracy. Napster was just getting started, and I was in love with it. I downloaded every single one of Rolling Stone's top 500 albums I didn't already own. Then I made sure I got every one of the top 500 songs too. Then I started on discographies. 42 Fleetwood Mac albums. 39 Van Morrison albums. Johnny Cash had close to 75 albums, and I went after them all. It was glorious, the Wild West, and a time we will never see again.
Eventually, Napster got shut down, and its follow-ups, like Limewire, were virus-laden poor imitations of the real thing. With the advent of BitTorrent, downloading movies became easy, as did getting whole runs of shows like The Sopranos or The Wire. A new edition would come out on Sunday night, and Monday night you could download a copy to watch on your DVD player. People with Netflix DVD subscriptions were keeping entire neighborhoods entertained.
Torrents weren't just for movies either. You could get software on them. Back in those days, I didn't know any developers, and companies like Adobe and Microsoft charged hundreds of dollars for their flagship products. I felt fully justified in getting my pirated copy of Photoshop. It took up a third of my hard drive, and I had no idea how to use it, but I had a copy. There was an infamous program for Mac nerds called Serial Box that contained the registration information for hundreds of apps, many of them by independent developers and small companies. I started to feel a little bit slimy at that point.
Then my ISP started sending me letters informing me that someone in my house was illegally downloading copyrighted material. I ignored the letters because I figured they were bluffing. In fact, they were not bluffing, which I found out one Saturday morning in 2006 when my Internet would not work. When I called tech support to complain, I was told to call back on Monday and ask for the folks in the fraud and abuse department. Oh, shit. This was during the time that the RIAA was suing the grandmothers of teenage downloaders for thousands of dollars. I was terrified all weekend that I was going to lose my house.
When Monday came, and I made the call, the stern-sounding lady on the phone told me to go to my computer and read what was on the screen. It basically said, "If I ever download something illegally again, my Internet will be turned off forever." There was one checkbox, and it just said "OK." I had to check it to get my Internet back. Oh, the movie that got me busted? It was Little Miss Sunshine, I found out later.
That was it for me. I uninstalled all my torrent downloading software and deleted the bookmarks to pirate sites. I got a three-disk-at-the-time Netflix DVD subscription to satisfy my movie habit. I started buying the software I wanted, even if things like Eudora email were close to $50.
These days, with the advent of VPNs and other technological advances, it's easier than ever to continue to pirate stuff. I work with techies who never stopped and who have elaborate NAS systems connected to always-on servers that use keyword-activated torrenting software to collect their ever-growing wish list. Despite the proliferation of malware in pirated software and a much better understanding of what piracy does to small companies and indie devs, people are still downloading "free" copies of $15 apps. Not me.
I can live with the guilt of depriving Bruce Springsteen of a few bucks by not paying for some of his albums. I'm sorry, Boss. I'm long reformed, and I have never given anyone advice on how to live the pirate's life. It's not the kind of consulting I want to do. The Internet isn't the Wild West any longer. It's all e-commerce and taxes and such. For a while though, we sailed the seas.
Addendum - I wrote this in the summer of 2024. In the spring of 2025, I decided to become one of those techies with an always on NAS automatically downloading my wishlist of movies and TV shows. After nearly two decades of subscribing to streaming services, the relentless price increases coupled with record profits and all manners of anti-competitive behavior drove me to it. At this point, I think it's more morally pure to deprive billionaires of income than it is to watch pirated copies of a TV show. I still shy away from software, for security reasons and because I think more of developers than I do of media conglomerates.
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Everyday Courage

You are surrounded by courageous people. The chances are you probably display and exemplify courage more than you can imagine. Some people associate the word with Marines charging a pillbox at Iwo Jima, but of course that's not always the case. Often it is just regular people living their lives, doing the things they're called to do. You may feel that you don't have a choice in life, but if you're not curled up into the fetal position, lying on the floor, unable to move, you're making choices every day.
It takes a certain kind of courage to live in the twenty-first century. This is true for everyone, even for old white guys like me who've been playing the game on easy mode most of our lives. Women have to summon courage more often than men do because let's face it guys, we just don't have to think about things like sexual assault, do we? People of color have to start summoning their courage every time white people (or cops) show up in a given location. A lot of us thought that our brothers and sisters and non-binary friends in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities were going to be able to live without displaying the bravery they'd been using forever, but we were wrong. Current malevolent forces require them to be braver than ever.
What is there to fear, you ask? Well, it's not the things that the government or Fox News would have you believe. It's not the boogeyman who's going to break into your house or a brown person who's going to take away your job. It's not terrorists or anyone who should cause you to start stocking up on guns and ammunition. The people who give us the most to fear are the people around us who have the most privilege. It's the people who would take away your child's health care so they could afford a bigger boat for their beach house. The cruelty of the majority seemingly has no limits. People who have burned through two or three marriages without having a happy one are the same people who would take away the right for committed same-sex couples to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage.
The opportunities for courage are unique to us as individuals. The most frightening thing I ever confronted was sixteen years ago when I spent my first day without alcohol. I had not done that in years and years, and the prospect of going twenty-four hours without the comfort of a drink absolutely terrified me. Of course, I was also terrified by the prospect of dying a miserable, alcoholic death. So I decided to try one more time to get sober, and it finally worked.
Other opportunities for courage include starting or ending a relationship, moving to a new town, leaving one job for another, having children, and making large financial decisions. The fact that millions of people do those things every day shouldn't take away from the reality that they require each of us to move forward into the unknown. Courage is infectious, and the best thing that I can do for myself is to participate in communities whenever possible, whether it's a twelve-step organization or just the kind people I know on the internet. Few things have to be endured alone.
Face whatever you have to face today. All of the terrible things that have ever happened to you in your entire life combined haven't killed you, so it's highly unlikely that anything that happens today will kill you either. Remember that you are not alone and that community is available if you look for it.
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Crucial Track for July 8, 2025
"Peaceful Easy Feeling" by Eagles
Share a song that sounds like your ideal Sunday morning. If there was a soundtrack for me life, a couple of Eagles songs would certainly be on it. They've been background music for 50 years. Some classic rock songs wear out eventually and you never want to hear them again, but others just become part of you.

Mt. Washington
There is a plaque on Mt. Washington to the hikers who have died there and at the bottom there are blank spaces for future names to be added. It snows there 12 months out of the year and the summit has recored winds of over 200mph. Today’s the anniversary of the day we summitted. The winds were a mere 60mph for us. #Hiking #AppalachianTrail


Crucial Track for July 3, 2025
"Back In Black" by AC/DC
What's your favorite song to listen to while doing chores? I will go to my grave insisting that the best chore album of all time is Back in Black by AC/DC - played really loud. After all these years, I know every second of every song. Listening to it while cleaning house is an old, old ritual.

Lonesome Lake
Today is the anniversary of what I remember as the hardest day of hiking that we spent on the #AppalachianTrail. It was our second day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and we climbed three 4K foot peaks, Wolf, South Kinsman and North Kinsman. It took 12.5 hours to go 16 miles. The ridge in the ditsnace in this picture is Fanconia Ridge, which we traversed the next day. #hiking
Crucial Track for July 2, 2025
"Little Boxes" by Pete Seeger
Share a song that sounds like your favorite childhood memory. - One of the albums that got played a lot in our house "for the kids" was the wonderfully subversive tune, "Little Boxes" written by Malvina Reynolds and made famouse by the inimitable Pete Seeger who put the song on Billboard's Hot 100. It's a song about the banal evils of conformity, following the rules and not making any waves. It's had a lasting effect on my view of the world and I'm exteremly happy that it's still getting played in the 21st century.

The White Mountains of New Hampshire
I’m not ashamed to say this is the mountain (Mt. Moosilauke) that made me cry on the Appalachian Trail. It was intimidating, a 1,000 feet higher than anything we’d previously climbed and the first time we’d gone above treeline and gotten a 360 degree view. When we reached the top, I got emotional over how lucky I was to be on the adventure of a lifetime with the woman I love.


Pisgah National Forest
Wonder Woman ran to the top of a mountaihn on a hot day in Pisgah National Forest (NC), north of Linville Gorge to snap this (pretty damn glorious) sunset picture. We’re spending all of our vacation money thiss ummer in the area hit by Hurricane Helene and abandoned by the MAGAts.
Learning to Live

The last two months have been a ride on a very slow moving roller coaster. Living with health challenges has taken an adjustment no one asked if I was ready to make. Thankfully, I'm a quick study and I'm finding out what my current capabilities allow me to do. I'm sleeping like a baby, meaning that I can't make it through the night and I need frequent naps. I'm usually fine as long as I am still. Moving around too much takes my breath away and man oh man, am I slow. One of my grandson uses a wheelchair most of the time but he can get out of it and beat me in a foot race right now.
Forty years of living with bi-polar disorder has taught me a thing or two about mood and energy swings. I accept that they happen and when they do, I don't freak out or whine about it. I had a long, long stretch of productive time from January 2024 through this spring when I managed to write 20 or more blog posts every week, Right now I am only writing one or two a week, but as things stabilize, I hope to pick up the pace a bit. I have managed to stay active on Mastodon, mostly because interacting with the people I have come to know there energizes me.
I’ve developed true compassion for anyone who goes through health challenges alone. I count my blessings every day because Wonder Woman supports me in every way, especially emotionally. She acknowledges my concerns but doesn’t let me wallow in them. She’s kept me incredibly busy by planning multiple trips out of town, mostly to do things with our grandchildren. I’m writing this while we are traveling home from a weekend with three teenage boys spent in SW Virginia, one of the most beautiful places on earth. I might not be able to climb mountains right now, but I still enjoy being surrounded by them.
I really appreciate the many emails and messages I’ve gotten. Don’t ever forget that there are many kind and caring people in the world. The slice of the Internet where I hang out lacks the toxicity that many folks experience when they venture into corporate owned spaces. Give me the small web in every way. I don’t miss billionaire-owned privacy invasion machines.
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Goodbye Vermont
On this day on our #AppalachianTrail journey, we hiked 20 miles before 4pm. We emerged from the woods to this quaint New England community where we met a former hiker who fed us and put us up for the night before sending us on way north into New Hampshire the next day. She was an amazing lady who had hiked the entiirety of the trail 3x, starting in the 50s.
Virgiinia Blues
It took us a little less than five weeks to hike south from the WV/VA state line to the VA/TN line - 550 miles of Appalachian Trail goodness. We saw 12 bears, had to hunt for water way too many times and finally got back to places where you can get grits with your breakfast. The last sectiom of the trail in VA is a nice day hike if you’re ever in the area.
New England Hiking is Hard
In the south, the #AppalachianTrail has lots of switchbacks and long, long gradual climbs out of gaps. In New England, you get stuff like this Vermont scene - straight up mountains on bare granite. On the steeper climbs, all the tree bark is worn off whereever hikers can grab for support. #hiking
Vintage Architecture
This building with its art deco facade, built in 1934, was once a Chevrolet dealership. It’s now used a garage by the city, which thankfully has maintained the design. (Fayetteville, NC)
ProcessSpy
When troubleshooting system issues or thoroughly evaluating a piece of software, experienced and knowledgable Mac users often turn to activity monitor to get information on memory, CPU usage, power consumption and more. It's often helpful but at times it can be cryptic. The developer of Process Spy has an example. "I was juggling several Java apps, each using a different JDK version — and I couldn’t tell which process was which in Activity Monitor. All I saw was “java”. No version, no path, no details. So I built ProcessSpy — a developer-focused tool that shows full command-line info, version details, environment variables, and more."
ProcessSpy has quite a few free features and even more in the inexpensive ($6.99) paid version.
Features of ProcessSpy
- Advanced tree view - can show cumulative totals for CPU, Memory and Threads.
- Javascript filters - create complex filters with multiple conditions.
- Version information - shows the version information of the process right in the main table.
- Context menu actions - Show in Finder, copy path, search process online and more
- Advanced process info (paid) - view advanced information like entitlements, Info.plist, and bundle ID and more
- Environmental variables (paid) - view environment variables of the process.
ProcessSpy iis distributed as a signed app in a DMG or through Homebrew. It runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs using macOS 14 or higher. In the free version, there is a 10-second wait screen before the program loads. Buying a license gets rid of that and offers extra functionality as described above.
You can purchase a license for ProcessSpy on Gumroad.
To install with Homebrew
brew install --cask processspy
ProcessSpy
When troubleshooting system issues or thoroughly evaluating a piece of software, experienced and knowledgable Mac users often turn to activity monitor to get information on memory, CPU usage, power consumption and more. It's often helpful but at times it can be cryptic. The developer of Process Spy has an example. "I was juggling several Java apps, each using a different JDK version — and I couldn’t tell which process was which in Activity Monitor. All I saw was “java”. No version, no path, no details. So I built ProcessSpy — a developer-focused tool that shows full command-line info, version details, environment variables, and more."
ProcessSpy has quite a few free features and even more in the inexpensive ($6.99) paid version.
Features of ProcessSpy
- Advanced tree view - can show cumulative totals for CPU, Memory and Threads.
- Javascript filters - create complex filters with multiple conditions.
- Version information - shows the version information of the process right in the main table.
- Context menu actions - Show in Finder, copy path, search process online and more
- Advanced process info (paid) - view advanced information like entitlements, Info.plist, and bundle ID and more
- Environmental variables (paid) - view environment variables of the process.
ProcessSpy iis distributed as a signed app in a DMG or through Homebrew. It runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs using macOS 14 or higher. In the free version, there is a 10-second wait screen before the program loads. Buying a license gets rid of that and offers extra functionality as described above.
You can purchase a license for ProcessSpy on Gumroad.
To install with Homebrew
brew install --cask processspy
A Couple of Visitors
Hanging out on the deck, taking pictures of the visitors. These freeloaders are looking for the inevitable handouts I use to bribe them into posing for me.


Appalachian Trail Memories
On this date on our Appalachian Trail thruhike, our friend Smokey surprised us by carrying hotdogs and buns in his pack over several mountains to share at day’s end. He also carried a Gatorade bottle full of bourbon. And some weed. I opted for a hot dog, not the party supplies.


MountMate - A Tool I Didn't Know I Needed
I have an "always on" Mac on my desk with several external drives
connected to it, drives I need frequently, but not continuously. I'd
been putting up with a cluttered Finder and needless spin-ups for months
when I discovered MountMate this week. MountMate is a menu bar app that
mounts and unmounts external drives. Without MountMate, after a drive is
ejected, I'd have to go into Disk Utility to mount it back, or more
likely I'd just unplug and replug the drive, not a small task on a desk
with three computers and eight external drives. Some people use shell
scripts and other fancy methods to accomplish this, but that's a notch
above my comfort level.
With MountMate, those days are over. When I need to add or access files on one of my drives, I can do so with just a couple of clicks. MountMate has a lot going for it. It's a native app, not electron, and it has no dependencies. It doesn't require Internet access or root permissions and it doesn't access your files. It even has a bonus feature - reporting used/free space.
The developer, Homielab, is very responsive. The original release of MountMate didn't have Intel support, and he added it in just a couple of days when I requested it. He's also working on a solution that will display the authentication prompt in MountMate when encrypted drives (e.g., Time Machine) are mounted.
MountMate can be downloaded from the HomieLabs website or GitHub. It's free/donationware.
MountMate - A Tool I Didn't Know I Needed
I have an "always on" Mac on my desk with several external drives
connected to it, drives I need frequently, but not continuously. I'd
been putting up with a cluttered Finder and needless spin-ups for months
when I discovered MountMate this week. MountMate is a menu bar app that
mounts and unmounts external drives. Without MountMate, after a drive is
ejected, I'd have to go into Disk Utility to mount it back, or more
likely I'd just unplug and replug the drive, not a small task on a desk
with three computers and eight external drives. Some people use shell
scripts and other fancy methods to accomplish this, but that's a notch
above my comfort level.
With MountMate, those days are over. When I need to add or access files on one of my drives, I can do so with just a couple of clicks. MountMate has a lot going for it. It's a native app, not electron, and it has no dependencies. It doesn't require Internet access or root permissions and it doesn't access your files. It even has a bonus feature - reporting used/free space.
The developer, Homielab, is very responsive. The original release of MountMate didn't have Intel support, and he added it in just a couple of days when I requested it. He's also working on a solution that will display the authentication prompt in MountMate when encrypted drives (e.g., Time Machine) are mounted.
MountMate can be downloaded from the HomieLabs website or GitHub. It's free/donationware.
The Mad Moose of Stratton Mountain
We reached the summit of Stratton Mountain to be greeted by the first moose either of us had ever seen. They’re huge BTW. Wonder Woman pursued the thing for several minutes trying to get a good photo. I was way too tired for all that, so I just rested. Side note: It was standing on this spot that Benton McKaye conceived the idea of the Appalachian Trail.
Vermont Hail Storm
On our second day in #Vermont, a sudden hailstorm caught us and all we could do was hike through it. Felt kinda badass TBH #Hiking #AppalachianTrail


The Long Trail (Vermont)
One of the oldest sections of the #AppalachianTrail is the Vermont section that overlaps that states’s long trail, which was first blazed over 120 years ago. It is one of the most beautiful sections, muddy perhaps, with more bugs than many might like, but still a memorable part of the experience. #hiking
Five Recent Finds at MacMenuBar
MacMenuBar.com is the best place on the Internet to find apps with that particular interface. Its recently added section is always worth checking out for new free, freemium and paid apps. Here are five recently added apps that are worth checking out.
Always on Top
Always on Top lets
you choose any window on your Mac to pin above all other windows. It's
got a nice menu-driven interface and is a nice addition to your
multi-tasking routine. (Free)
Signal Shifter
Signal Shifter
gives you a convenient location to control the inputs, outputs,
Bluetooth devices and volume control right from your Menu Bar.
(Free)
QuickGif
QuickGif provides a searchable Gif menu for use in any app. Drop GIFs into Slack, iMessage, Discord, and more. Save your favorites. (freemuim)
AppLockr
Applockr allows you to password protect any app on your Mac to prevent it being opened by anyone who should not access it. it's better suited for apps like Apple Notes that have an internal database rather than apps that create separately accessible documents. You should also lock Terminal and Activity Monitor to prevent unauthorized users from using those apps to force quit AppLockr itself. (one time payment)
Calendr
Calendr provides quick calendar access from your menu bar, complete with reminders. it has 1600 stars on Github, so plenty of people find it useful.
Five Recent Finds at MacMenuBar
MacMenuBar.com is the best place on the Internet to find apps with that particular interface. Its recently added section is always worth checking out for new free, freemium and paid apps. Here are five recently added apps that are worth checking out.
Always on Top
Always on Top lets
you choose any window on your Mac to pin above all other windows. It's
got a nice menu-driven interface and is a nice addition to your
multi-tasking routine. (Free)
Signal Shifter
Signal Shifter
gives you a convenient location to control the inputs, outputs,
Bluetooth devices and volume control right from your Menu Bar.
(Free)
QuickGif
QuickGif provides a searchable Gif menu for use in any app. Drop GIFs into Slack, iMessage, Discord, and more. Save your favorites. (freemuim)
AppLockr
Applockr allows you to password protect any app on your Mac to prevent it being opened by anyone who should not access it. it's better suited for apps like Apple Notes that have an internal database rather than apps that create separately accessible documents. You should also lock Terminal and Activity Monitor to prevent unauthorized users from using those apps to force quit AppLockr itself. (one time payment)
Calendr
Calendr provides quick calendar access from your menu bar, complete with reminders. it has 1600 stars on Github, so plenty of people find it useful.
The View from Mt. Greylock
My Greylock is the tallest mountain in Massachusetts, coming in at 3491 feet. There is a restaurant at the top and a kind stranger had given us money to buy a meal there, but alas, it was closed when we arrived. No worries thoguh, we just hiked to the next town and ate there instead.
My Mac Contacted 63 Different Apple Owned Domains in One Hour - While Not in Use
During a one hour period today, my computer contacted 63 different Apple domains while i was not logged on and using it.
I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big
tech into my life. A full 25% of the DNS queries from one of my
computers (M2 MBA with macOS 15.4) are to Apple owned domains - even
though my DNS provider (NextDNS) blocks Apple's native telemetry.
Additionally, since I do not use Apple for my mail, contacts, calendars,
podcasts or news, I already have the routes to those Apple services
blacklisted.
Interestingly, my 2019 Intel MBP with the same DNS settings has
less than 3% of it's DNS queries hitting Apple domains.
Here are the domains Apple contacted during one 60-Minute Period When I Was Not Using My Computer
One Hour - 63 Apple Domains
- 1-courier.push.apple.com - Apple Push Notification Service
- 1-courier.sandbox.push.apple.com - Apple Push Notification Service
- api.apple-cloudkit.com - CloudKit, Apple's backend service for developers to store and sync app data
- api.apple-cloudkit.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- app-site-association.cdn-apple.com - Used for Universal Links
- apple-relay.cloudflare.com
- apple.com - Core Apple websites
- bag.itunes.apple.com - iTunes/App Store purchase container
- configuration.apple.com - for fetching various system configurations, including location services
- configuration.ls.apple.com - for fetching various system configurations, including location services
- cts.cdn-apple.com - CDN for network content
- entitlements.itunes.apple.com - Checks your entitlements for apps and content
- fbs.smoot.apple.com - for crash reports, analytics, or user feedback.
- fpinit.itunes.apple.com - Initialization for iTunes/App Store services
- gateway.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- gdmf.apple.com - Device Management Framework
- gsa.apple.com - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsa.idms-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsas.apple.com - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsas.idms-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com - related to Location Services (LS) and certificate validation (SSL)
- gspe35-ssl.ls.apple.com - related to Location Services (LS) and certificate validation (SSL)
- iadsdk.apple.com - Apple's iAd advertising network SDK
- init-p01md.apple.com
- init.ess.apple.com - Apple's Entitlement Services
- init.itunes.apple.com - Initialization for iTunes/App Store services
- kt-prod.ess.apple.com - Apple's Entitlement Services
- lcdn-registration.apple.com - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- musicstatus.itunes.apple.com - For checking the status of Apple Music or iTunes Match
- ocsp2.apple.com - Online Certificate Status Protocol
- p44-buy-lb.itunes-apple.com.akadns.net - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- p44-buy.itunes.apple.com - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- pancake.apple.com - telemetry
- pd.itunes.apple.com - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- proxy.safeBrowse.apple - for Apple's Safari Fraudulent Website Warning (Safe Browse)
- sandbox.itunes-apple.com.akadns.net - used by developers for testing in-app purchases
- sandbox.itunes.apple.com - used by developers for testing in-app purchases
- sas-uw2-pcms.apple.com - related to purchase or content management systems within Apple's retail or media ecosystem.
- sas.pcms.apple.com - related to purchase or content management systems within Apple's retail or media ecosystem.
- setup.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- st11p01su-lcdnreg.isu.apple.com.akadns.net - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- suconfig.apple.com - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- swallow-apple-com.v.aaplimg.com - related to content delivery or image services
- swallow.apple.com - related to content delivery or image services
- testflight.apple.com - for TestFlight, Apple's platform for beta testing apps
- time.apple.com - Network Time Protocol
- token.safeBrowse.apple - for Apple's Safari Fraudulent Website Warning (Safe Browse)
- us-ne-courier-4.push-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple Push Notification Service
- us-sandbox-courier-4.push-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple Push Notification Service
- use1-wps-prod.apple.com
- weatherkit.apple.com
- wps.apple.com
- www.apple.com - Core Apple websites
- xp.apple.com - telemetry
- gateway.icloud.com
- p177-content.icloud.com
- edge-062.usatl5.icloud-content.com
- p104-content.icloud.com
- setup.icloud.com
- p150-content.icloud.com
- p176-content.icloud.com
- p101-content.icloud.com
- mask-api.icloud.com
Apple Domains I Already Block
- apple.news
- apple.tv
- podcasts.apple.com
- siri.apple.com
- caldav.icloud.com
- contacts.icloud.com
- mask.apple-dns.net
- mask-api.icloud.com
- doh.dns.apple.com.v.aaplimg.com
- doh.dns.apple.com
- apple-relay.cloudflare.com
- mask-canary.icloud.com
- mask-h2.icloud.com
- mask.icloud.com
- p120-caldav.icloud.com
My Mac Contacted 63 Different Apple Owned Domains in One Hour - While Not is Use
During a one hour period today, my computer contacted 63 different Apple domains while i was not logged on and using it.
I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big
tech into my life. A full 25% of the DNS queries from one of my
computers (M2 MBA with macOS 15.4) are to Apple owned domains - even
though my DNS provider (NextDNS) blocks Apple's native telemetry.
Additionally, since I do not use Apple for my mail, contacts, calendars,
podcasts or news, I already have the routes to those Apple services
blacklisted.
Interestingly, my 2019 Intel MBP with the same DNS settings has
less than 3% of it's DNS queries hitting Apple domains.
Here are the domains Apple contacted during one 60-Minute Period When I Was Not Using My Computer
One Hour - 63 Apple Domains
- 1-courier.push.apple.com - Apple Push Notification Service
- 1-courier.sandbox.push.apple.com - Apple Push Notification Service
- api.apple-cloudkit.com - CloudKit, Apple's backend service for developers to store and sync app data
- api.apple-cloudkit.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- app-site-association.cdn-apple.com - Used for Universal Links
- apple-relay.cloudflare.com
- apple.com - Core Apple websites
- bag.itunes.apple.com - iTunes/App Store purchase container
- configuration.apple.com - for fetching various system configurations, including location services
- configuration.ls.apple.com - for fetching various system configurations, including location services
- cts.cdn-apple.com - CDN for network content
- entitlements.itunes.apple.com - Checks your entitlements for apps and content
- fbs.smoot.apple.com - for crash reports, analytics, or user feedback.
- fpinit.itunes.apple.com - Initialization for iTunes/App Store services
- gateway.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- gdmf.apple.com - Device Management Framework
- gsa.apple.com - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsa.idms-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsas.apple.com - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gsas.idms-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple ID (IDMS) and Game Center Services (GSAS)
- gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com - related to Location Services (LS) and certificate validation (SSL)
- gspe35-ssl.ls.apple.com - related to Location Services (LS) and certificate validation (SSL)
- iadsdk.apple.com - Apple's iAd advertising network SDK
- init-p01md.apple.com
- init.ess.apple.com - Apple's Entitlement Services
- init.itunes.apple.com - Initialization for iTunes/App Store services
- kt-prod.ess.apple.com - Apple's Entitlement Services
- lcdn-registration.apple.com - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- musicstatus.itunes.apple.com - For checking the status of Apple Music or iTunes Match
- ocsp2.apple.com - Online Certificate Status Protocol
- p44-buy-lb.itunes-apple.com.akadns.net - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- p44-buy.itunes.apple.com - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- pancake.apple.com - telemetry
- pd.itunes.apple.com - related to the iTunes Store and App Store purchase
- proxy.safeBrowse.apple - for Apple's Safari Fraudulent Website Warning (Safe Browse)
- sandbox.itunes-apple.com.akadns.net - used by developers for testing in-app purchases
- sandbox.itunes.apple.com - used by developers for testing in-app purchases
- sas-uw2-pcms.apple.com - related to purchase or content management systems within Apple's retail or media ecosystem.
- sas.pcms.apple.com - related to purchase or content management systems within Apple's retail or media ecosystem.
- setup.fe2.apple-dns.net - DNS/gateway services for Apple's infrastructure
- st11p01su-lcdnreg.isu.apple.com.akadns.net - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- suconfig.apple.com - related to Software Update and (CDN) registration
- swallow-apple-com.v.aaplimg.com - related to content delivery or image services
- swallow.apple.com - related to content delivery or image services
- testflight.apple.com - for TestFlight, Apple's platform for beta testing apps
- time.apple.com - Network Time Protocol
- token.safeBrowse.apple - for Apple's Safari Fraudulent Website Warning (Safe Browse)
- us-ne-courier-4.push-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple Push Notification Service
- us-sandbox-courier-4.push-apple.com.akadns.net - Apple Push Notification Service
- use1-wps-prod.apple.com
- weatherkit.apple.com
- wps.apple.com
- www.apple.com - Core Apple websites
- xp.apple.com - telemetry
- gateway.icloud.com
- p177-content.icloud.com
- edge-062.usatl5.icloud-content.com
- p104-content.icloud.com
- setup.icloud.com
- p150-content.icloud.com
- p176-content.icloud.com
- p101-content.icloud.com
- mask-api.icloud.com
Apple Domains I Already Block
- apple.news
- apple.tv
- podcasts.apple.com
- siri.apple.com
- caldav.icloud.com
- contacts.icloud.com
- mask.apple-dns.net
- mask-api.icloud.com
- doh.dns.apple.com.v.aaplimg.com
- doh.dns.apple.com
- apple-relay.cloudflare.com
- mask-canary.icloud.com
- mask-h2.icloud.com
- mask.icloud.com
- p120-caldav.icloud.com
Hiking the Berkshires
Western Massachusetts is a pretty place. The Berkshires aren’t too daunting but they have their moments. I’d been brainwashed as a southerner to thinnk that the Northeast US was a big urban jungle. It isn’t. New England is one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. #hiking #Appalachian. Trail
A Photo Management Workflow Without Big Tech
One of the things that make the tools of Big Tech so seductive to
use are their rich feature sets. Photo management apps from Google,
Amazon, and Apple require little more than flipping a toggle switch to
begin uploading photographs from your phone. Each company provides you a
ready-made website with the ability to create albums, share photographs,
and do basic editing. All you have to do is to give them your data, your
privacy, and I suspect your soul.
This year I opted to remove all of my personal photographs from the servers of the big tech companies and to manage them on a self-hosted server in my home. My challenge was to automate the process as much as possible for both me and my wife and to get the same benefits: iOS access, backup and sharing.
The canonical location of our photos is located on the hard drive of an always on Mac which has multiple backups including Time Machine, two different European based cloud storage companies (Koofr and kDrive)and multiple external hard drives. The iOS app of my cloud service, kDrive by Infomaniak automatically uploads all images added to the phones library to their server and those are synced to to the Mac in our home. I created an Apple shortcut that runs once a day when triggered by a Keyboard Maestro macro that copies all of the photos added in the past 24 hours from the upload location to the canonical photo location. Then Hazel moves those photos to a folder corresponding to the current year and month. During this process, images are converted from HEIC to JPG.
I use the powerful and full featured open-source photo management app, Digikam, to rename and tag my photos and to make any adjustments to the geolocation. Digikam also does editing and duplicate detection. I have Syncthing running on the Mac to two other computers. One is my server which uses Unraid. The other computer is a 16-year-old iMac with Xubuntu, a good distro for old hardware, that serves as a 24 inch digital picture frame to rotate our photo collection in a never ending loop. On my server, the synced photo library is used by the photo management application, Immich. I have Immich connected to the Internet through a secure Cloudflare tunnel. It allows us to view our photo collection on the Immich iOS app and to create shareable albums with our friends and family.
Hopefully, if you are interested in removing your photos from the clutches of big tech, this will give you some ideas on how to use some of the software I've reviewed to create your own solution. Feel free to hit me up with questions.
A Photo Management Workflow Without Big Tech
One of the things that make the tools of Big Tech so seductive to
use are their rich feature sets. Photo management apps from Google,
Amazon, and Apple require little more than flipping a toggle switch to
begin uploading photographs from your phone. Each company provides you a
ready-made website with the ability to create albums, share photographs,
and do basic editing. All you have to do is to give them your data, your
privacy, and I suspect your soul.
This year I opted to remove all of my personal photographs from the servers of the big tech companies and to manage them on a self-hosted server in my home. My challenge was to automate the process as much as possible for both me and my wife and to get the same benefits: iOS access, backup and sharing.
The canonical location of our photos is located on the hard drive of an always on Mac which has multiple backups including Time Machine, two different European based cloud storage companies (Koofr and kDrive)and multiple external hard drives. The iOS app of my cloud service, kDrive by Infomaniak automatically uploads all images added to the phones library to their server and those are synced to to the Mac in our home. I created an Apple shortcut that runs once a day when triggered by a Keyboard Maestro macro that copies all of the photos added in the past 24 hours from the upload location to the canonical photo location. Then Hazel moves those photos to a folder corresponding to the current year and month. During this process, images are converted from HEIC to JPG.
I use the powerful and full featured open-source photo management app, Digikam, to rename and tag my photos and to make any adjustments to the geolocation. Digikam also does editing and duplicate detection. I have Syncthing running on the Mac to two other computers. One is my server which uses Unraid. The other computer is a 16-year-old iMac with Xubuntu, a good distro for old hardware, that serves as a 24 inch digital picture frame to rotate our photo collection in a never ending loop. On my server, the synced photo library is used by the photo management application, Immich. I have Immich connected to the Internet through a secure Cloudflare tunnel. It allows us to view our photo collection on the Immich iOS app and to create shareable albums with our friends and family.
Hopefully, if you are interested in removing your photos from the clutches of big tech, this will give you some ideas on how to use some of the software I've reviewed to create your own solution. Feel free to hit me up with questions.
Crucial Track for June 10, 2025
"Baba O'Riley" by The Who
I was a farm kid in the 70s and 80s. When I hear Pete Townshend's guitar play those unmistakable chords and Roger Daltry's voice sing this song, I've felt like I could take on the world. The Who and the Kinks were the more intellectual bands of the British invasion with more and better imagery than some of the pop stuff from the lads from Liverpool and their dirty London Cousins.
*"Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals I get my back into my living I don't need to fight to prove I'm right I don't need to be forgiven
Don't cry, don't raise your eye It's only teenage wasteland"

Ice Gulch
This is Ice Gulch, located on the Appalachian Trail just north of Great Barrington, MA. It’s a mile long and a hundred feet deep. It’s on a stretch of the trail that makes for a good day hike if you are ever in the area.
State Line
That brook is the state line for Connecticut and Massachusetts on the Appalachian Trail. There was supposed to be a bridge there, but oh well. If there is one thing I leaned on that hike, it was how to be resilient.


Runner's High
Wonder Woman gliding through a mountain meadow on a warm June morning. She makes it look easy. #ultrarunning
Crucial Track for June 3, 2025
"Jackson (with June Carter Cash)" by Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash
What song would you use to describe your current relationship? Jackson by Johnny Cashand June Carter Cash - Before I met my wife, I lived a life with too much of a whole bunch of stuff that's not good for you. Most people would consider me reformed today. I love the good natured way Johnny and June sing this tune, knowing Johnny's rough life prior to their marriage.

The Glacier at Portage Lake
On a day trip to the town of Whittier, Alaska, Winder Woman and I went to see the glacier at Portage Lake. I wanted to see one before they all melt because of climate change.
South Fork of the Holston River
The Virgina Creeper Trail crosses the soth Fork of the Holston River, just north of Abindon, VA.
Taylor's Valley, VA
We’re heading back to this slice of heaven next weekend so Wonder Woman can volunteer at the Dam Yeti 50, an ultramarathon. It will be our first visit since Hurrican Helene devastated the area. #ultrarunning
Use Obsidian in a Browser from Anywhere, Without Installation
I just got into self hosting about a month ago with an old Lenovo
Thinkpad I pulled out of the recycling pile at work and a couple of big
external hard drives. Tonight I discovered that there is a Docker version of
Obsidian that works on my server. In a couple of hours, I had an
https connection to a test vault, accessible over the Internet via a URL
through a CloudFlare Zero Trust tunnel (which is a free service that
does secure routing for you). You can password protect the vault to keep
out intruders. You should also use a cryptic subdomain and not
obsidian.mydomain.com
All the people who want to use Obsidian at work but are prohibited from installing anything could surely find use in this. Additionally, folks with one of those big ass iPad Pros can now use the desktop version of Obsidian and the plugins that don't work on iOS. Any time you don't have access to your own device, you can jump on anything with a web connection to access your data.
This is probably old news to old school self hosters, but to this neophyte, it was a cool-as-hell discovery.
Use Obsidian in a Browser from Anywhere, Without Installation
I just got into self hosting about a month ago with an old Lenovo
Thinkpad I pulled out of the recycling pile at work and a couple of big
external hard drives. Tonight I discovered that there is a Docker version of
Obsidian that works on my server. In a couple of hours, I had an
https connection to a test vault, accessible over the Internet via a URL
through a CloudFlare Zero Trust tunnel (which is a free service that
does secure routing for you). You can password protect the vault to keep
out intruders. You should also use a cryptic subdomain and not
obsidian.mydomain.com
All the people who want to use Obsidian at work but are prohibited from installing anything could surely find use in this. Additionally, folks with one of those big ass iPad Pros can now use the desktop version of Obsidian and the plugins that don't work on iOS. Any time you don't have access to your own device, you can jump on anything with a web connection to access your data.
This is probably old news to old school self hosters, but to this neophyte, it was a cool-as-hell discovery.
Whitetop Mountain, VA
One of my favorite spots in the world, Whitetop Mountain, VA. The day we first hiked hiked there, we met a group of self described “old hippies” having a picnic. They invited us to join in. Back in the late 30’s, this was the site of a music festival featuring the Carter family among others.
Anchorage View
This is what you will see from Potter Wildlife Viewing Center just outside of Anchorage. It’s a great place to go if you are into birding.
BlockBlock and KnockKnock from Objective-See
Anyone who tells you that Macs don't get viruses is misinformed,
and you shouldn't rely on that person for computing advice. Mac malware
exists. Having said that, the average Mac user is in much better shape
than the average Windows user because the bad actors of the world tend
to concentrate on the platform with the largest market share.
Additionally, those who have a modern Mac running an up-to-date OS have
built-in
behind the scenes protection that requires them to very little to be
safe. If that's you, and you get all your software from the App Store,
move along and have a nice day. But, if you download software from
developer web sites, Github or if you are living the Pirate's life (you
gangster, you), it's probably a good idea to take the extra step to
protect yourself.
The Objective-See Foundation is a non-profit 501©(3) corporation that has been around since 2015. It provides free, open-source security software for the Mac platform.
BlockBlock
BlockBlock is a utility that loads at login and monitors your Mac for the installation of any persistent program, a category that includes most malware. When BlockBlock encounters a new persistent installation, it alerts you and asks for your input. Do you want to allow this or forbid it? "If the process and the persisted item is trusted, simply click 'Allow'. If not, click 'Block'. Both actions will create a rule to remember your selection (unless you selected the 'temporarily' checkbox). If you decide to block an item, BlockBlock will remove the item from the file system, blocking the persistence."
KnockKnock
KnockKnock serves as an on-demand file scanning utility. "Press the 'Start Scan' button to instruct KnockKnock to scan known locations where persistent software or malware may be installed. By design, KnockKnock simply lists persistently installed software. Although by default signed-Apple binaries are filtered out, legitimate 3rd-party software will likely be displayed.
"If the item is an executable binary, KnockKnock automatically queries VirusTotal with a hash of the binary to retrieve any information. While VirusTotal is being queried, this button displays '■ ■ ■'. Once the query is complete, the title of the button is automatically updated with either the detection ratio, or a '?' if the binary is not known to VirusTotal."
"With the query complete, the button can be clicked to reveal a popup containing VirusTotal-specific information about the file. If the file is unknown, clicking the 'submit?' button will submit the file for analysis. Known files contain a link to the full analysis report and a 'rescan?' button that will rescan the file."
Other Options
Objective-See makes other security products including LuLu, an open-source free firewall and ReiKey, which detects keyboard trackers.
If your primary security concerns center around places you go online vs. the software you install, I would also suggest running a periodic scan with the commercial product, Malwarebytes. It has a free version for manual scans and a paid version for more extensive real-time protection.
For more on security - see this post for information on my personal toolkit.
BlockBlock and KnockKnock from Objective-See
Anyone who tells you that Macs don't get viruses is misinformed,
and you shouldn't rely on that person for computing advice. Mac malware
exists. Having said that, the average Mac user is in much better shape
than the average Windows user because the bad actors of the world tend
to concentrate on the platform with the largest market share.
Additionally, those who have a modern Mac running an up-to-date OS have
built-in
behind the scenes protection that requires them to very little to be
safe. If that's you, and you get all your software from the App Store,
move along and have a nice day. But, if you download software from
developer web sites, Github or if you are living the Pirate's life (you
gangster, you), it's probably a good idea to take the extra step to
protect yourself.
The Objective-See Foundation is a non-profit 501©(3) corporation that has been around since 2015. It provides free, open-source security software for the Mac platform.
BlockBlock
BlockBlock is a utility that loads at login and monitors your Mac for the installation of any persistent program, a category that includes most malware. When BlockBlock encounters a new persistent installation, it alerts you and asks for your input. Do you want to allow this or forbid it? "If the process and the persisted item is trusted, simply click 'Allow'. If not, click 'Block'. Both actions will create a rule to remember your selection (unless you selected the 'temporarily' checkbox). If you decide to block an item, BlockBlock will remove the item from the file system, blocking the persistence."
KnockKnock
KnockKnock serves as an on-demand file scanning utility. "Press the 'Start Scan' button to instruct KnockKnock to scan known locations where persistent software or malware may be installed. By design, KnockKnock simply lists persistently installed software. Although by default signed-Apple binaries are filtered out, legitimate 3rd-party software will likely be displayed.
"If the item is an executable binary, KnockKnock automatically queries VirusTotal with a hash of the binary to retrieve any information. While VirusTotal is being queried, this button displays '■ ■ ■'. Once the query is complete, the title of the button is automatically updated with either the detection ratio, or a '?' if the binary is not known to VirusTotal."
"With the query complete, the button can be clicked to reveal a popup containing VirusTotal-specific information about the file. If the file is unknown, clicking the 'submit?' button will submit the file for analysis. Known files contain a link to the full analysis report and a 'rescan?' button that will rescan the file."
Other Options
Objective-See makes other security products including LuLu, an open-source free firewall and ReiKey, which detects keyboard trackers.
If your primary security concerns center around places you go online vs. the software you install, I would also suggest running a periodic scan with the commercial product, Malwarebytes. It has a free version for manual scans and a paid version for more extensive real-time protection.
For more on security - see this post for information on my personal toolkit.
I Like Your Blog If...

Since I stopped spending much time on commercial websites and more time
exploring the blogs on IndieWeb platforms, I have developed a type and a
preference for the kinds of blogs I like. There's plenty to choose from.
I like tech but not too much tech
For better
or worse, it takes a fairly technical person to get involved in
blogging. A lot of the people I read are developers of some sort or
other even if they don't write about that part of their lives that much.
I enjoy reading about the relationship people have with the tech in
their life and how that has evolved over time. I find it interesting to
read about what people are making, although if a blog primarily consists
of code blocks and inside baseball talk about the nuances of particular
programming languages, I'm probably going to move on. Most people do a
pretty good job at striking a balance.
I like smart and smart-ass but not people who think themselves
smarter than everyone else
There are a few bloggers
who consistently write about how dumb people are and it's a big old turn
off. I like smart people. I like people smarter than me (not hard). I
even like people with a smart ass sense of humor but I have worked for
too long with stereotypical computer support people who think all end
users are stupid and I'm so very weary of that attitude. I think it's
great to point out the misconceptions of others but it's boorish if
that's the main thing someone writes about.
I like people whose political content is about peace,
compassion, equality and diversity
In other words,
I'm not a fan of, nor will I read very much of what passes as
conservative ideology these days. I don't want to live in a bubble but
I'm just not going to waste any of my remaining time on this planet
engaging with people who don't believe in climate change or the
importance of stamping out white supremacy or in allowing people to be
as non-traditional as they want to be. Luckily, I haven't run into too
much of that in the circles where I run.
I like consistency
If you are the kind of
blogger who just spits out content day after day, I'm here to tell you
to keep it up! I realize not everybody has that in them and that's OK.
With me, you just don't have to worry that you post too much. If you
only write a few paragraphs a week, it's harder to get to know you, to
develop curiosity about your the things you share. I don't always have
the time or the inclination to read 5,000 word missives, but I like
knowing what folks are up to.
I like friendly
I'm from the south and have
lived here my whole life. Down here we have a sort of innate
familiarity. We are apt to ask how your Mama's doing even if we don't
know her. I like people who come across with that same sort of vibe,
letting pieces of their real lives leak out. I absolutely do not mind
hearing about you feeling tired taking your kid to basketball practice
or shocking news about your grandma's affair. I like authentic people
who don't posture, who are just themselves, struggling like the rest of
us to make sense of a confusing world without resorting to barrier
building between themselves and their readers.
Heart Stopping News

For about the past five years, it's occurred to me regularly that two things: my advancing age and my neglect of what people call "taking care of yourself" were going to bring about the end of days before I'm ready for them. My dad, only seventeen years my senior, proclaims to be "ready to go," but I am not. Not at all.
What's happened to me isn't unique. I developed painful arthritis in both knees after a lifetime of being physically active. I eventually had both of them replaced in 2020, but I never bounced back from it. The surgeries coincided with a prolonged bout of depression, one of may I've dealt with over the past 40 years. Complicating that even further, I came down with Guillain–Barré syndrome. By the time I recovered, I'd gained weight and had almost no endurance capacity. Walking a mile was about as much as I could do.
Recently, the slightest bit of physical exertion has been leaving me winded. I have been having real problems with fatigue. Last week my feet and lower legs started to swell in a way that hasn't ever happened before. I made a doctor's appointment with some difficulty because it's America in the 21st century. I didn't really want to think too much about what I might hear, but I was prepared for anything. After prescribing some medication and cautioning me against excessive sodium consumption, the doctor quickly diagnosed me with congestive heart failure and referred me to a cardiologist, which is where this story pauses.
I'm not the type of person who obsesses about their health. I'm not going to WebMD to read everything they have on my condition. I'm just going to wait on the cardiologist to tell me what I need to know. I'm shaken up a bit. I just turned 60 in February and though I'd have more time before this kind of stuff started happening. I take some comfort in knowing that my father-in-law was diagnosed with the same thing 20 years ago. My dad has had three heart attacks. They started in his 40s and he took another 15 years to even quit smoking. Hopefully, I'll have that kind of luck.
I'm already grateful for each day. As a recovering alcoholic with 16 years of sobriety, I've already gotten one second lease on life, one that I have taken full advantage of. I count my blessings every day and draw a lot of strength from a loving family and a fulfilling life that allows me to pursue the things that interest me. While this news has knocked me a bit of a loop, I don't see myself falling into a self-pity trap. It is what it is. I would rather not spend time moping when I can be doing something that brings me joy.
Hopefully, whatever treatment plan I get will alleviate the symptoms I've had and give me more energy. I have the motivation to do stuff, just not the capacity I'd like. I'm lucky to have Wonder Woman who is supportive and loving and not full of "I told you so's". There are plenty of people worse off than me. I'm keeping that in mind.
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Anchored Down in Anchorage
Both of these photos are from our morning walk within the city limits of Anchorage, where we visited my daughter and grandchildren.


New York Ladder
I lost count of the number of ladders the maintainers of the Appalachian Trail have installed in the rockier sections. New York is notorious for sending you over obstacles like this, when often, while at the top, you can look down and see a perfectly useful trail that goes right around the thing you are climbing on. #hiking
Thanks Ladybird
If you enjoy roadside planting of wildflowers, thank former first lady, Ladybird Johnson, who conceived and popularized the practice. I’m glad the government spends money on flowers. I’d rather they do that than buy more bombs or tax fewer rich people. The planting is by a rest stop on Interstate 40 in Johnston County, NC.
The Bridge at Vernon
Some stretches of the Appalachian Trail lack any amenities. There are whole states with no privies and Maine doesn’t have any bridges for creeks and rivers, you have to wade them all. New Jersey, on the other hand, has all the fancy stuff, including this bridge outside Vernon.
Off the Blue Ridge Parkway
Good morning from just off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC. There are miles of paths through the woods near Cone Manor, once the estate of a textile baron, today a park.
The Rutherford Shelter on the Appalachian Trail
Located in High Point State Park in New Jersey, the Rutherford Shelter sports a (non-functional) satellite dish courtesy of some joker who lugged it through the woods to install. The hiker shown (trail name, Smokey) was notorious for the extra pack weight he endured to carry a constantly replenished bottle of bourbon and a considerable amount of cannabis. #hiking
Linville Gorge
Good morning from Table Top Mountain, near the edge of Linville Gorge, home of some of the toughest #hiking in the Eastern US.
Minimalism - Not for Me

I don't consider myself materialistic. I drive 2005 Toyota Camry. I've lived in the same house for 30 years. I wear one kind of pants and just about all my shirts are the same color. In the past six months I've upgraded all my tech except my Apple Watch, but before that I had an iPhone 11, an Intel MacBook and a five-year old iPad. Having said all that, I am not a minimalist anywhere in my life except in my backpacking setup because carrying heavy shit up and down mountains gets real old real fast.
My current software girlfriend is Obsidian, a note taking app with 2,000+ available plugins. I'm active on Reddit in the sub pertaining to the app where there is an ongoing war between two factions. There is the crowd I'm with who are very much about seeing what they can configure the program to do using scripts and plugins and ingenuity. Then there is the other side who eschew anything more than the vanilla version and accuse the rest of us of not being productive enough because we spend too much time fiddling with things. What? That's where the fun is. It's a note taking app, perhaps the least sexy kind of software this side of scientific calculators. To just install it and start taking notes without trying to automate or quantify things is just weird to me.
The same goes with phones. I buy the biggest amount of storage space I can afford and I do my level best to use it all. I install all the apps and download all the videos, Kindle books, Audible books, PDFs . I think I have six Mastodon clients installed right now and that's OK. It's my phone. I enjoy software evaluation a lot and I manage to have a busy ass phone as well as a wife, a job and good relations with my offspring. I know that a lot of the default apps people are just normies who get zero enjoyment out of seeing what cool things third party apps can do and don't want to spend the money anyway. That's cool. It's just not me.
When I was at the height of my cycling passion, unlike some more well off folks, I only had one bike because those damn things are crazy expensive. But, I had dozens of water bottles, an entire closet of cycling clothes, multiple pumps, bottles of chain lube, extra helmets and so forth until I finally had to dedicate an entire room of the house to my cycling hobby. To be fair, by that point I'd married another cyclist and we put her bike stuff in that room too. Not a minimalist. Like I said.
Other things I probably have too much of include books, coffee cups, clothes that I'm sure will fit again one day and computer cables because I think there is a law that says nerds like me are obligated to have Firewire 400 connectors at the ready in case Apple brings back the standard. I just want to be prepared.
Things you won't find at my house include jewelry, extra watches, a boat, a fancy riding lawn mower dishes I don't eat off of regularly and televisions scattered around everywhere.
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Trail Town Oddities
I saw numerous odd things while passing through trail towns on my AT thru-hike. This live bait vending machine was beside a gas station in Delaware Water Gap, PA, right on the river at the New Jersey State line. The people there were very hospitable, and we stayed in a church-run hostel that has free showers and laundry.#hiking
Crucial Track for May 23, 2025
"We Are Family" by Sister Sledge
What song best matches the energy of today? We Are Family by Sister Sledge - Just to prove I'm not a music snob, I'll readily admit to having a few disco favorites and this is one of them. It captures today's mood because my son, who lives 1,000 miles away, is coming for a visit. Even though Wonder Woman and I weren't married until he was an adult, we're still family and they adore each other, which makes me happy.

Goldfinch
Every spring, I buy thistle seeds to attract the goldfinches to my yard. I think they are one of the loveliest birds around. #birds
Pelicans in Flight
Good morning from Carolina Beach, NC. The pelicans are out early looking for breakfast. #birds.
Crucial Track for May 20, 2025
"You Never Even Called Me By My Name (The Perfect Country and Western Song)" by David Allan Coe
What’s a remix or cover you like more than the original? "You Never Even Called Me By My Name by David Allen Coe" is one of my all-time favorites. While I have it on pretty good authority that Coe is a bit of a rough character, his rendition of Steve Goodman's original is classic. I was lucky enough to hear Hootie and the Blowfish perform this live at a free convert my hometown sponsored. Darius Ruck explained that being from the south, the band like to play the song for souther audiences.

Another Knife's Edge
This is one of many stretches of the Appalachian Trail known as The Knife’s Edge. It’s in eastern Pennsylvania, a day south of the Lehigh Gap. For about a mile, you have to put your hiking poles away and maintain three points of contact to traverse it. #hiking
The Appalachian Trail Near Allentown, PA
I remember this day for one spectacular disappointment - we’d planned to visit a privately owned shelter near the trail that had an actual flush toilet instead of a privy, but we couldn’t find it for some reason. I was so sad. We stopped at this primeval looking spot to eat lunch.
Crucial Track for May 19, 2025
"Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" by Bob Dylan
What’s a song that grew on you over time? **Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts by Bob Dylan" - It pains me to think this song is 50-years-old now. I was 10 when it was released and to me, it's always been one of the songs of "The New Dylan" which I roughly define as anything not from the 1960s. The music and lyrics to the tune are just a master class in how to win the Nobel Prize. Along with Hurricane, I think this is some of his best work of the 1970s.

Bald Pate Mountain
Southern Maine has some of the best hiking in the US. Bald Pate Mountain is fun on a dry day, but if it is raining, take the day off. This is the south side. The northern side is just a steep granite sliding board with the occasional bush to grab. The view from the top is magnificent. #hiking #AppalachianTrail
Moravian Church
The cupola atop the Moravian Church in Old Salem Village (which later combined with another nearby community to form the modern city of Winston-Salem, NC).
The Colorado River
If you descend to the floor of the Grand Canton, this is what awaits you. Wonder Woman sent me this photo on the day she completed the Rim to Rim challenge. She also remembers it as the day I watched two TV shows without her, something I will never live down, I guess.
Rim to Rim
A couple of years back, Wonder Woman made a weekend trip to Arizona to cross this off her bucket list - running the Grand Canyon from rim to rim, which she did the day after taking this photo.
Guilt Free Digital Media Pipeline Automation
After a nearly twenty year break from using peer-to-peer
technology (torrents) to download movies and TV shows, I have decided
that it's more ethically pure in 2025 to once again fly the skull and
crossbones than it is to put money in the hands of the fascist
billionaires who monopolize the entertainment industry. To be clear, I'm
not advocating doing this to software from independent developers. It's
the collaborating big tech companies that don't deserve your money any
more.
Don't do this without a VPN. Just to show you how easy it is for your ISP or anyone who has your router's IP address to see what you download, you can use I Know What You Download
With minimal effort, using mostly free or freemium software. you can cobble together a secure, integrated system capable of importing my watchlist from Trakt into a an app that will search torrent web sites for the media that you want, download it and add it to a Plex media server.
The tools needed for creating this system are:
- Trakt - an online database of movies and television shows (Freemium)
- Nord VPN - a privacy protecting virtual private network to shield my Internet traffic from my ISP and others. Other VPNs using the OpenVPN or Wireguard standard with P2P capabilities can also be used. (paid)
- Prowlarr - an app that facilitates public and private torrent sites and adds them to other apps from the same developer to search for media (FOSS)
- Radarr - imports my movie watchlist from Trakt, searched the Internet for movies in English, that are at least 1080p and that do not exceed 10GB . It adds those movies to my BitTorrent client. It renames them using the Plex naming standard and adds them to the folder where my media library is located. (FOSS)
- Sonarr- imports my television watchlist from Trakt, searched the Internet for shows in English, that are at least 1080p and that do not exceed 10GB . It adds those movies to my BitTorrent client. It renames them using the Plex naming standard and adds them to the folder where my media library is located. (FOSS)
- Deluge - a BitTorrent download client with built in VPN integration and a highly configurable interface (FOSS)
- Plex - a media server that lets you watch movies and TV shows stored on your computers hard drive on your television through your Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Firestick or other streaming mechanisms
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon Prime Video, The Washington Post , and a hobby space exploration company among many other things. When the de facto head of Saudi Arabia's government ordered the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Bezos protested loudly and had a PR photo taken at the man's grave. Yesterday, Bezos proudly announced a new business partnership with the same government that committed the murder.
Apple has been in active collaboration with MAGA since the CEO, Tom Cook, donated $1 million to the president's inauguration. The company was just found to have committed perjury and ignoring a court order to end abusive business practices that unfairly rob developers of revenue and inflate the price of software and services.
Guilt Free Digital Media Pipeline Automation
After a nearly twenty year break from using peer-to-peer
technology (torrents) to download movies and TV shows, I have decided
that it's more ethically pure in 2025 to once again fly the skull and
crossbones than it is to put money in the hands of the fascist
billionaires who monopolize the entertainment industry. To be clear, I'm
not advocating doing this to software from independent developers. It's
the collaborating big tech companies that don't deserve your money any
more.
Don't do this without a VPN. Just to show you how easy it is for your ISP or anyone who has your router's IP address to see what you download, you can use I Know What You Download
With minimal effort, using mostly free or freemium software. you can cobble together a secure, integrated system capable of importing my watchlist from Trakt into a an app that will search torrent web sites for the media that you want, download it and add it to a Plex media server.
The tools needed for creating this system are:
- Trakt - an online database of movies and television shows (Freemium)
- Nord VPN - a privacy protecting virtual private network to shield my Internet traffic from my ISP and others. Other VPNs using the OpenVPN or Wireguard standard with P2P capabilities can also be used. (paid)
- Prowlarr - an app that facilitates public and private torrent sites and adds them to other apps from the same developer to search for media (FOSS)
- Radarr - imports my movie watchlist from Trakt, searched the Internet for movies in English, that are at least 1080p and that do not exceed 10GB . It adds those movies to my BitTorrent client. It renames them using the Plex naming standard and adds them to the folder where my media library is located. (FOSS)
- Sonarr- imports my television watchlist from Trakt, searched the Internet for shows in English, that are at least 1080p and that do not exceed 10GB . It adds those movies to my BitTorrent client. It renames them using the Plex naming standard and adds them to the folder where my media library is located. (FOSS)
- Deluge - a BitTorrent download client with built in VPN integration and a highly configurable interface (FOSS)
- Plex - a media server that lets you watch movies and TV shows stored on your computers hard drive on your television through your Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Firestick or other streaming mechanisms
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon Prime Video, The Washington Post , and a hobby space exploration company among many other things. When the de facto head of Saudi Arabia's government ordered the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Bezos protested loudly and had a PR photo taken at the man's grave. Yesterday, Bezos proudly announced a new business partnership with the same government that committed the murder.
Apple has been in active collaboration with MAGA since the CEO, Tom Cook, donated $1 million to the president's inauguration. The company was just found to have committed perjury and ignoring a court order to end abusive business practices that unfairly rob developers of revenue and inflate the price of software and services.
A New Generation
Having lived in the same house for 30 years now, I’ve watched generations of tree rats make their home in my backyard. Every year, a new crop of babies starts the process of getting to know us through the bribery process. I’ve probably distributed a ton of peanuts to them since 1995.
South Carolina Low Country
A spring afternoon in a kayak on a waterway like this is not a bad place to be. In the South Carolina Low Country, you can find places like this all over.
Pilot Mountain
If you ever heard Andy and Barney talking about Mount Pilot on the Andy Griffith Show, that was a reference to the real place, Pilot Mountain, NC, which is about 20 minutes away from Mount Airy, Griffith’s real hometown and the basis for the fictional Mayberry from the show.
No Need to Worry, I Think
I've just taken the longest break from writing in well over a year. It wasn't a planned break. We've been traveling quite a bit over the past month. Preparing for and recovering from the trips takes time, not to mention actually being away from home. I've also been consumed with a couple of interesting projects that can be real time sucks. It's been nice to give myself a break. No one creates pressure for me the pressure I put on myself. The minute a hobby starts to feel like work, it's time to reevaluate.
I operate well when I'm consistent. I'm capable of long, long streaks in all kinds of circumstances. I went nearly two years of getting 10K steps a day, which required me to go for long walks in the midst of a couple of hurricanes. So, yeah, I'm not always the brightest when it comes to these arbitrary goals. Consistency in writing caused me to literally lose sleep on the days when I put off posting until late in the day. Tapping out blog posts on road trips with Wonder Woman doesn't make me the best traveling companion either. I decided to evaluate my dopamine addiction, the one that's fed every time I hit the "publish" button on my blog. Writing is stil a priority, but I'm giving myself some space for other things.
One of the projects I'm working on is the consolidation of a lifetime of photographs. I started using a digital camera in 1995 when I worked for Westinghouse as a technical writer. It was a hefty model made by Kodak that used a small disk to record images. I think it cost about $5K at the time. The company paid for it, but I would occasionally use it to take personal photos. I've been using an iPhone since 2009, which is when the production of digital photography really accelerated. I'm sorting my pictures by the year and month they were taken. When possible, I add geotags to any images that don't have one. Using face recognition software, I'm tagging all the photos of my friends and family. In as many cases as I can, I'm also tagging the photos by subject.
I'm removing all the residue from work, which means random images of IP addresses, error messages, blinking lights from switches, routers, and wireless access points and the like. I'm also moving the thousands of memes I've collected to a separate library to that all my anti-Republican vitriol doesn't get mixed up with the images of my grandkids when i set my computers to play slide shows.
My second project is the self-hosted server I've been working on. I've repurposed old hard drives and other pieces of hardware to create versions of my music, photos, books and video collections from the Internet and on my home network on various devices. Every day I try new ways to avoid using the resources of the big tech companies, a big goal of mine this year.
The only other issue I'm facing is a wacky disturbance in my sleep schedule. It's been months since I got eight continuous hours of shut-eye. I've gotten into a pattern of getting up around 2:00 AM every day to work on my projects and then napping throughout the rest of the day. It's not a productive pattern, but I'm having a hard time breaking it.
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Crucial Track for May 14, 2025
"Jesus Christ" by Woody Guthrie
What’s a lyric that resonates deeply with you and why? I'm far from religious, but I pay attention to the effect that religion plays on society. Although the utter hypocrisy of the Christian right-wingers seems like a fairly recent development, it really isn't. Woody Guthrie was singing about the dividing line between God and mammon 85 years ago. This song was written in New York City Of a rich man, preacher, and slave If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee, They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.

Crossing the Hudson
This is the lowest point on the Appalachian Trail. It’s in New York, where the trail crosses the Hudson River. Manhattan is only 18 miles away. You can see the skyline from the top of the nearby mountain. #hiking #AppalachianTrail
Crucial Track for May 13, 2025
"Authority Song" by John Cougar Mellencamp
If your life were a movie, what would its theme song be? Authority Song by John Cougar Mellencamp - I swear, if there is a truer lyric than "I fight authority. Authority always wins>", I don't know what it is. IDGAF, though. I'm going to keep doing me, until I die. I have never been able to play the emperor has no clothes game. I value honesty and transparency in a world that prefers to keep secrets as a power play and to pretend that certain truths don't exist. I'm good-natured, but outspoken. I don't expect to totally change the culture, but I strive to make my mark.

Downtown Winston Salem at Night
These ghostly towers are all that remains of the old coal plant for the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company’s old coal-fired power plant. Today the area is a beautiful urban park and concert venue.
The Real Apple

Today, after many years of being a devout user of Apple's online services, going all the way back to the days of .Mac, I took steps to reduce the company's access to my data in as many ways as possible.
If I told you that Apple gives up user data to law enforcement data a higher percentage of the time than Facebook does, would you believe me? What if I told you that Apple turns over user data 90% of the time? That doesn't quite square with the image the company has cultivated, does it?
Did you know that you can continue to use Apple's default products like contacts, calendars, and reminders without using iCloud at all? You can still enjoy the great design and functionality without putting all your eggs in one basket. If you use every Apple default app with the default settings, and you lose access to that one account, your digital life is just about over. It happens every single day.
Over 40% of the average Internet user's traffic goes to just five big tech companies: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook (Meta) and Amazon. The leaders of those companies are trying to curry favor with an authoritarian US government. That government is arguing that not all people in the US are entitled to due process. Protecting yourself and your data is more important than it has ever been.
I urge the people I care about to spread their digital life around so that a single compromised account won't ruin their lives. I also urge them to use companies outside the US so that what they have online can't be used against them.
I've written a mega-post about privacy for Mac users with links to the sources of the information about Apple's real privacy record. It's too long and covers too much ground to be appropriate here. For anyone looking for Mac apps that help break GAFAM dominance and reduce dependence on Apple and other companies, here are resources and information to use.
- A Privacy and Security Toolkit AppAddict
- Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation AppAddict
- Pareto Security - Quick and Easy AppAddict
- Opting for Mac Apps That Are Immune to Changes in US Privacy Laws | AppAddict
- Librewolf for Security and Privacy | AppAddict
- Lingon X Finds All the Junk AppAddict
- A Different App for Managing Background Items AppAddict
- Fmail2 for Fastmail AppAddict
- Koofr - European Based Cloud Storage Provider with a Generous Free Tier AppAddict
- Using Kagi Search Engine on a Mac - Software and Tips AppAddict
- How to Internet - 2025 Edition Living Out Loud
- NextDNS for Mac AppAddict
- Mac Firewall Apps AppAddict
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Mega Post: Protect Yourself Like Your Freedom Depends On It
Today was the day that I finally went through a comprehensive checklist to cut down my dependency on Apple web services to the fullest extent possible. I'm still a fan of their software and hardware, but despite their PR campaign to pose as a privacy first company, they cooperate with law enforcement a higher percentage of the time than Facebook does. Let that sink in. In a time when our right to due process in America is under question, I'm not letting any US big tech companies have any more access to my life than is absolutely needed.
All of you who are big fans of using Apple default apps with their default settings, take note.
The "GAFAM" (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft) are the 5 dominant Internet companies that own many popular services, often operating under a different name, e.g., WhatsApp and Instagram for Facebook. Collectively, about 40% of the average computer and smartphone traffic goes to just these five companies. All of them have been fined by governments around the world for illegal invasion of privacy and other infractions.
Apple makes headlines occasionally for refusing to cooperate with government demands for access to customer data. According to their own transparency reports, though, the company gives the government what it wants in 90% of cases.
“iCloud content, as it exists in the customer’s account” can be handed over to law enforcement in response to a search warrant, Apple’s law enforcement guidelines read. That includes everything from detailed logs of the time, date and recipient of emails sent in the previous 25 days, to “stored photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, Safari browsing history, maps search history, messages and iOS device backups.” The device backup on its own may include “photos and videos in the camera roll, device settings, app data, iMessage, business chat, SMS, and MMS [multimedia messaging service] messages and voicemail”, according to Apple.
I only recently arrived at the conclusion that I no longer wanted
to store things like my calendars, contacts, and reminders with Apple.
For one thing, it's always a bad idea to have too much data tied into a
single account. People lose access to the iCloud and Google accounts all
the time. Spend some time on Reddit or do a quick Internet search for
examples. Many people don't fully understand that you do not have to
store your contacts, calendars, and reminders in iCloud to be able to
use those apps on your Mac and Phone. I've blocked all three services at
the DNS level and am happily accessing my data from third-party
providers that aren't in GAFAM.
Reducing Your Apple Connections
You can take the following steps to cut down on the traffic between your computer and Apple.
-
Go through your security and privacy settings with a fine tooth comb and remove access from everything you are not using regularly.
- Location services
- Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos, etc
- Analytics & Improvements: (turn them all off
- Screen recording camera and microphone access
- Full disk access
-
Go through everything with iCloud access
- I had over with 100 apps with access to iCloud Drive. Not anymore.
- Consider an alternative to iCloud photos
- Turn off Passwords/Keychain syncing if you use 1Password or another password manager
-
Turn off automatic services
- You don't need your computer to ask Apple every day if updates are available. Set that to manual.
- You don't need the app store to install all those iPhone apps on your Mac. Turn off automatic updates.
- Go through the apps that are listed beneath your login items and turn off access to anything you don't use regularly or that you don't recognize. Use Lingon or StartupManager to do an even more thorough job.
Since January 20, 2025, I've taken the following steps to
leave GOFAM:
- Changed email providers from Gmail to a company located outside the US. I use my own domain for email and have unlimited email addresses. My primary address doesn't get handed out repeatedly to people I would rather not have it.
- Moved the majority of my cloud storage to European providers and removed everything from Google Drive and Google Photos
- Stoped using Google search entirely in favor of Kagi
- Canceled Amazon Prime and stopped backing up photos to Amazon servers
- Uninstalled all Microsoft products and removed all files from OneDrive
- Canceled all Meta accounts and blocked Facebook at the DNS level
Other Privacy Related Practices
- I use NextDNS which allows granular control over Internet traffic. With the right settings, you can stop ads and trackers from passing through your router, speeding up your connection and increasing your privacy. It also provides encrypted DNS to block third parties from having a record of your Internet habits.
- I rotate between five browsers to cut down on fingerprinting. On browsers that support it, I use uBlock Origin, still the Mack Daddy of ad and tracker blockers.
- I use a VPN almost all the time, especially away from home
- I use a third-party firewall to block certain outgoing traffic, since the Mac firewall is only for inbound traffic. You should still turn it on, though.
Related Posts
Mega Post: Protect Yourself Like Your Freedom Depends On It
Today was the day that I finally went through a comprehensive checklist to cut down my dependency on Apple web services to the fullest extent possible. I'm still a fan of their software and hardware, but despite their PR campaign to pose as a privacy first company, they cooperate with law enforcement a higher percentage of the time than Facebook does. Let that sink in. In a time when our right to due process in America is under question, I'm not letting any US big tech companies have any more access to my life than is absolutely needed.
All of you who are big fans of using Apple default apps with their default settings, take note.
The "GAFAM" (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft) are the 5 dominant Internet companies that own many popular services, often operating under a different name, e.g., WhatsApp and Instagram for Facebook. Collectively, about 40% of the average computer and smartphone traffic goes to just these five companies. All of them have been fined by governments around the world for illegal invasion of privacy and other infractions.
Apple makes headlines occasionally for refusing to cooperate with government demands for access to customer data. According to their own transparency reports, though, the company gives the government what it wants in 90% of cases.
“iCloud content, as it exists in the customer’s account” can be handed over to law enforcement in response to a search warrant, Apple’s law enforcement guidelines read. That includes everything from detailed logs of the time, date and recipient of emails sent in the previous 25 days, to “stored photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, Safari browsing history, maps search history, messages and iOS device backups.” The device backup on its own may include “photos and videos in the camera roll, device settings, app data, iMessage, business chat, SMS, and MMS [multimedia messaging service] messages and voicemail”, according to Apple.
I only recently arrived at the conclusion that I no longer wanted
to store things like my calendars, contacts, and reminders with Apple.
For one thing, it's always a bad idea to have too much data tied into a
single account. People lose access to the iCloud and Google accounts all
the time. Spend some time on Reddit or do a quick Internet search for
examples. Many people don't fully understand that you do not have to
store your contacts, calendars, and reminders in iCloud to be able to
use those apps on your Mac and Phone. I've blocked all three services at
the DNS level and am happily accessing my data from third-party
providers that aren't in GAFAM.
Reducing Your Apple Connections
You can take the following steps to cut down on the traffic between your computer and Apple.
-
Go through your security and privacy settings with a fine tooth comb and remove access from everything you are not using regularly.
- Location services
- Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos, etc
- Analytics & Improvements: (turn them all off
- Screen recording camera and microphone access
- Full disk access
-
Go through everything with iCloud access
- I had over with 100 apps with access to iCloud Drive. Not anymore.
- Consider an alternative to iCloud photos
- Turn off Passwords/Keychain syncing if you use 1Password or another password manager
-
Turn off automatic services
- You don't need your computer to ask Apple every day if updates are available. Set that to manual.
- You don't need the app store to install all those iPhone apps on your Mac. Turn off automatic updates.
- Go through the apps that are listed beneath your login items and turn off access to anything you don't use regularly or that you don't recognize. Use Lingon or StartupManager to do an even more thorough job.
Since January 20, 2025, I've taken the following steps to
leave GOFAM:
- Changed email providers from Gmail to a company located outside the US. I use my own domain for email and have unlimited email addresses. My primary address doesn't get handed out repeatedly to people I would rather not have it.
- Moved the majority of my cloud storage to European providers and removed everything from Google Drive and Google Photos
- Stoped using Google search entirely in favor of Kagi
- Canceled Amazon Prime and stopped backing up photos to Amazon servers
- Uninstalled all Microsoft products and removed all files from OneDrive
- Canceled all Meta accounts and blocked Facebook at the DNS level
Other Privacy Related Practices
- I use NextDNS which allows granular control over Internet traffic. With the right settings, you can stop ads and trackers from passing through your router, speeding up your connection and increasing your privacy. It also provides encrypted DNS to block third parties from having a record of your Internet habits.
- I rotate between five browsers to cut down on fingerprinting. On browsers that support it, I use uBlock Origin, still the Mack Daddy of ad and tracker blockers.
- I use a VPN almost all the time, especially away from home
- I use a third-party firewall to block certain outgoing traffic, since the Mac firewall is only for inbound traffic. You should still turn it on, though.
Related Posts
Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina
This beach is almost exactly 100 miles from my front door. It’s on a barrier island with no skyscrapers or chain restaurants. It is lovely.
Tiny Little Acts of Resistance

As a certified, card carrying, paid up member of the resistance, my days are spent with an eye towards doing something, anything to retain my sanity in a world seemingly going mad. I am always on the lookout for whatever I can do to bolster my faith in humanity and to connect with those who feel much the same way about the world as I do.
Here are a few of the things I've done recently.
Reaching Out
In 2010, on my 45th birthday, I went on a long bike ride with a group from my cycling club with a selection of much younger military guys and one civilian woman who was an elite road bike racer. I met my friend AJ that day. A couple of years later, when they got out of the Air Force, they left straight away for Springer Mountain, Georgia to hike the Appalachian Trail. AJ was the first person I'd ever known to start that journey. Years later, when I set out to do the same thing, they provided me advice and even met Wonder Woman and I in Maryland, bought us lunch, took us to the grocery store and offered up a variety of gear to us in case we needed it. Later on , AJ came out as non-binary. I've followed their life for a long time now and seen them complete an education, write and direct plays, complete unbelievable bike rides (like the Tour Divide), get married, parent two boys and joyously become an English professor.
I sent them a letter recently to let them know that I'm still a fan. We used to keep up with one another on Facebook, but since I left, connecting on Bluesky has not been as easy. Unfortunately, AJ's return letter bore the news that their boss at the college was trying to get them fired. The college is in an area that voted MAGA by a 3 to 1 margin, so you can guess why they want o part ways with my friend. It just goes to show that staying connected with the vulnerable people in our lives is something we have to do in times like this. We all need one another.
Speaking Out
If there has ever been a time to be loud and proud, 2025 is that time. I try not to let an opportunity to advocate for resistance pass me by. Just tonight on my App Review blog, I suggested a tool that lets people access information without putting money in the pockets of billionaires and fascists. If you need to see something from the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post or The New York Times, I've got you covered. And, if for some reason, you need to look at something from Twitter, I can show you how to do that without going to the Nazi bar. If I see someone with a Kamal bumper sticker or an anti-MAGA one, I go out of my way to praise them for their sanity.
Staying Informed
I refuse to doom scroll the news on my phone or computer. I haven't watched TV news since before Obama and the only thing I listen to these days is old music and the occasional audiobook. Still, I spend about 30 minutes every morning going through the headlines from the sources I trust. Here's a list. I don't have to wallow in self-pity and frothing anger. I just need to know what kind of damage the Fascists are doing. I take the time to celebrate victories, like the recent decision to stop the GOP from stealing an election here in NC that they lost by 70K votes. I'm also happy to see that the Catholic Church has a Pope who can help stifle the reactionary conservatism of the Americans. Go Leo!
Being Honest
I know that I speak to the current situation from a position of privilege. I'm a cisgender, heterosexual middle class white guy who gets to play the game of life on easy mode. I know this. I keep that in mind. I celebrate the others of my kind who are keeping things as radical as they can, like Adam from OMG.LOL who makes accountability his brand. Another OMG.LOL member @bbq just put up $10K of his dough to match donations to progressive causes and people have stepped up to support The Trevor Project , Prison Literacy, support for the neurodivergent, medical research and more. These role models give me hope for the future.
Resist!
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Redirect Web for Safari
I've recently been using Safari much more regularly than I have in years. I found quite a few helpful extensions that improve the experience. One that I didn't find on my own, but that I am grateful to have discovered through a tip from a reader, is Redirect Web for Safari, which allows you to define how your computer handles links from certain sources. You can use predefined rules or build your own.
Predefined Rules
- Make Reddit links open in Old Reddit
- Open Twitter links in Xcancel to avoid adding any traffic to the official site
- Open Wikipedia links in Wikiwand for a more pleasant reading experience
- Open Google Map links in Apple Maps if you're trying to de-Google as much as possible
- Since Safari doesn't offer Kagi as a default search engines, you can use this extension to redirect all your searches to Kagi, skipping a trip to Google completely. There are other ways to do this, so if you have something that is already working, stick with it.
- You can also redirect any searched from Google to Brave Search or Startpage
- There are other rules to improve the user experience for Figma, Notion, Facebook, Google Search and multiple tweaks for YouTube
I have long supported ethical journalism sources financially. For years, the New York Times was the most expensive of my subscriptions, including TV, software. I was also a Washington Post subscriber for more than a decade. Last year, after the owners of the publications introduced changes to their editorial policies, I elected to quit supporting them financially. On the occasion that I want to read a story from either of them, I created simple rules that take their URLs and redirects them to the Internet Archive. The same rule works for other paywalled sites owned by billionaires, such as The Wall Street Journal and Bloomburg. You can do the same thing manually and with various other extensions, but this method has less friction than any that I've found. For that reason, it is the one I recommend using.
The extension costs $3.99 for a lifetime use or $1.99 for one year with a seven-day free trial. It has no ads and no tracking. It just makes the Internet better.
Redirect Web for Safari
I've recently been using Safari much more regularly than I have in years. I found quite a few helpful extensions that improve the experience. One that I didn't find on my own, but that I am grateful to have discovered through a tip from a reader, is Redirect Web for Safari, which allows you to define how your computer handles links from certain sources. You can use predefined rules or build your own.
Predefined Rules
- Make Reddit links open in Old Reddit
- Open Twitter links in Xcancel to avoid adding any traffic to the official site
- Open Wikipedia links in Wikiwand for a more pleasant reading experience
- Open Google Map links in Apple Maps if you're trying to de-Google as much as possible
- Since Safari doesn't offer Kagi as a default search engines, you can use this extension to redirect all your searches to Kagi, skipping a trip to Google completely. There are other ways to do this, so if you have something that is already working, stick with it.
- You can also redirect any searched from Google to Brave Search or Startpage
- There are other rules to improve the user experience for Figma, Notion, Facebook, Google Search and multiple tweaks for YouTube
I have long supported ethical journalism sources financially. For years, the New York Times was the most expensive of my subscriptions, including TV, software. I was also a Washington Post subscriber for more than a decade. Last year, after the owners of the publications introduced changes to their editorial policies, I elected to quit supporting them financially. On the occasion that I want to read a story from either of them, I created simple rules that take their URLs and redirects them to the Internet Archive. The same rule works for other paywalled sites owned by billionaires, such as The Wall Street Journal and Bloomburg. You can do the same thing manually and with various other extensions, but this method has less friction than any that I've found. For that reason, it is the one I recommend using.
The extension costs $3.99 for a lifetime use or $1.99 for one year with a seven-day free trial. It has no ads and no tracking. It just makes the Internet better.
Crucial Track for May 8, 2025
"She Thinks I Still Care" by George Jones
What’s your favorite love song, and why? She Thinks I Still Care by George Jones - anyone who has ever gone through a reluctant breakup or two can relate to most of the lines in this classic tune by George Jones. It has also been recorded by Elvis, James Taylor, Merle Haggard and many others. I love to sing along with this one because It's one of the few songs that fits my voice's ability to harmonize.

Is it really called Chinese Chess?
I’m pretty sure it’s the amount of money riding on this game that attracts the crowd. Taken in a park on the edge of Chinatown in NYC.
BarCuts Brings Order to Your Shortcuts Menu
I make extensive use of shortcuts all day long on my Mac. I use
them to import data into Obsidian, generate alt-text for images I post
on my blog or social media, query Open.AI, dismiss notifications, quit
all apps, launch multiple apps at once, perform backups and so much
more. In the past, I've made extensive use of the option to add
shortcuts to a native menu running from the Mac menu bar, but over time
the list grew long and more difficult to mage.
Just in the nick of time, one of the friendliest and most helpful developers on the planet, Germany's own Carlo Zottman, released a small app called BarCuts. It also runs from the menu bar, but only shows shortcuts that work in the currently active app, plus ones that you decided you always want to have available.
This means that when I am in Obsidian, I see shortcuts to import a weather report and copy the day's appointments into my daily note. When I use any other app, I don't see those shortcuts. When I am in Safari, I see the shortcut I use to open paywalled site at the Internet Archive.
I always see the shortcuts for emptying my trash and dismissing all the notifications from the Notification Center. All you have to do to configure your options is to add a single Shortcuts action at the end of your existing shortcuts.
Because Carlo is good at what he does, "the menu can also be opened by a global keyboard shortcut, you can put your workflows in sub menus, and there's a separate section for all those important always-available workflows.
Naturally, BarCuts comes with scripting support, and you can also hook it up to Alfred or plug it into Raycast."
BarCuts has a two-week fully functional free trial. Licenses are €12 personal/€24 business and include updates for one year. You retain ownership and use of the app as long as it is compatible with macOS. There is no subscription.
For more shortcuts add-ons, see this review. Enhance Apple Shortcuts with These Apps | AppAddict
BarCuts Brings Order to Your Shortcuts Menu
I make extensive use of shortcuts all day long on my Mac. I use
them to import data into Obsidian, generate alt-text for images I post
on my blog or social media, query Open.AI, dismiss notifications, quit
all apps, launch multiple apps at once, perform backups and so much
more. In the past, I've made extensive use of the option to add
shortcuts to a native menu running from the Mac menu bar, but over time
the list grew long and more difficult to mage.
Just in the nick of time, one of the friendliest and most helpful developers on the planet, Germany's own Carlo Zottman, released a small app called BarCuts. It also runs from the menu bar, but only shows shortcuts that work in the currently active app, plus ones that you decided you always want to have available.
This means that when I am in Obsidian, I see shortcuts to import a weather report and copy the day's appointments into my daily note. When I use any other app, I don't see those shortcuts. When I am in Safari, I see the shortcut I use to open paywalled site at the Internet Archive.
I always see the shortcuts for emptying my trash and dismissing all the notifications from the Notification Center. All you have to do to configure your options is to add a single Shortcuts action at the end of your existing shortcuts.
Because Carlo is good at what he does, "the menu can also be opened by a global keyboard shortcut, you can put your workflows in sub menus, and there's a separate section for all those important always-available workflows.
Naturally, BarCuts comes with scripting support, and you can also hook it up to Alfred or plug it into Raycast."
BarCuts has a two-week fully functional free trial. Licenses are €12 personal/€24 business and include updates for one year. You retain ownership and use of the app as long as it is compatible with macOS. There is no subscription.
For more shortcuts add-ons, see this review. Enhance Apple Shortcuts with These Apps | AppAddict
Graduation Gifts

My grandchildren started graduating from high school a couple of years ago and now every spring we face the dilemma of what to get them to help in their journey to the rest of their education. Although I don't see anything wrong with cash or gift cards, sometimes it feels good to actually buy a thing, something they might hesitate to get for themselves. Our oldest grandson opted to go the non-traditional route. He's taking classes and then tests to become a certified mechanic. An exceptionably bright lad, he feels the same way his father and I felt about sitting in classes at the age of 19. It's just not going to happen. His sister, on the other hand, is not only going to college (Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg, VA), she's going with a couple of hefty scholarships she worked her butt off to get.
Here are a few ideas for any graduates in your life.
College Must Haves: 30 Things You Need For Surviving - Getting set to pack up and head to college is super exciting. If you’re gearing up to do this, we’ve put together a list of miscellaneous things that’ll make your first year of college much easier: college must haves. Consider getting these items to survive your first years at college!
50 best high school graduation gifts for teens in 2025 - Graduation day is a momentous occasion for students and families, but especially when you’re in high school. The anticipation and work leading up to the commencement ceremony is stressful enough, but celebrating their accomplishments with a practical graduation gift (and perhaps a party!) will be well worth the hassle.
15 Practical High School Graduation Gifts for Your College Bound Kids - Your high school grad started off (and likely ended) their senior year behind a screen, socially distanced and deprived of the excitement of being the top dogs on campus. And with graduation behind them, many are being pushed right into college this fall back at the bottom of the totem pole.
Off the coast of County Cork, Ireland
The landscape near the shore is mostly sheep pastures. The waters are teeming with seals.
Crucial Track for May 7, 2025
"Welfare Music" by Hard Working Americans
What’s a hidden gem or underrated song you love? I don't think I've ever heard any of the Top 10 Most Played songs in my music collection ever played on the radio. My all time #1 most played is Welfare Music, a song I learned to love by listening to The Bottle Rockets but one that has been recorded by several other artists, notably John Hiatt and The Hardworking Americans. The tune has a nice guitar lick and some biting social commentary at the expense of the loathsome Jesse Helms and Rush Limbaugh.

Just Call Me Judgey McJudgeFace

Has anyone ever accused you of being judgmental? Did you ever wonder how they arrived at that conclusion without judging you? Tonight, I shall rant about a senseless admonition that no one actually follows. Usually when you get chided for being judgmental, you haven't done anything wrong, apart from stepping on someone's toes.
Typically, when people tell you not to be judgmental, what they mean is be aware that you may not have all the evidence to arrive at an informed opinion on a person's behavior. The most famous example of this is Chekov's story, The Mourner about a woman who fails to control an unruly child on a train trip. Her fellow passengers make the determination that she is a not proper mother until they find out the purpose of her trip is to accompany her husband's casket back home. I am fine with that kind of advice. Get the data you need to make informed decisions.
Making judgments is a survival skill. When we tell our kids not to hang out with hoodlums, we're instructing them to make judgments on other people's character, as we should. One of the most important jobs we have as parents is installing values in our offspring. They will inevitably reach their own conclusions on those values, but at least we get them pointed in the right direction. I'm pleased to say that my son and daughter are firmly anti-racist, and always have been. Both of them have traits I admire and seek to emulate as well. They are good parents. They've made good financial decisions. Not only that, but they work hard.
There are a great many things I will not judge people on:
- The number of tattoos or piercings they have
- The kind of car they drive (unless it is a new, off the lot Tesla)
- The clothes they wear
- The color of their skin
- The use of profane language
- Their sexual preference
- Their gender identity
- Their nationality
- Their job
Things I will judge people on:
- What kind of computer operating system they prefer
- The items in their grocery cart
- Whether they know what to do when they forget their password
- Whether they will use a search engine to find out the answer to a question
- Politics
- Religion (if they belong to one that uses one of the categories above to judge people)
- If they start whispering when they describe another person's race
- How much they tip
The good news is that quite often, the result of me being judgmental is that I find that I admire something about a person. My judgments are usually more positive than negative. It's only in the case of modern MAGA behavior that I will unleash the thunderbolt of eternal damnation on your ass. Anyone who starts making excuses for the Fascists gets assigned to the bad list for all eternity. I'm old. I don't have the time or energy to put questionable people on a rehab program. If you back the fash, you're dead to me. Next, please.
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County Cork
The rugged Irish coastline in County Cork makes the placid sandy beaches I’m used to, look kind of bland in comparison.
Crucial Track for May 6, 2025
"Convoy" by C.W. McCall
What's a gulity pleasure song? - Convoy by C.W. McCall - If you were a kid in the 70s, you probably thought this song was cool too. It's a tune about CD radios, a brief national craze during the decade. They were even options on high-end automobiles like Lincoln Continentals and Cadillac El Dorados. There is a certain beat poetry vibe to the lyrics, characterized by the unforgettable line "eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus." I recently heard this played on the Muzak system of a barbecue joint in Salem, VA and my respect for the owners grew in that moment.

Guilty or Not Guilty? How Do You Plead?

One of my bad habits was imagining myself to be a super-villain. It took me a long time to realize that I am not a unique and special snowflake. I am a man among men, just your average, garden variety dude, no better (and this is crucial) and no worse than the next guy. it's actually a skill of maturity to be able to realize that it's OK, in a general sense, to tell yourself that everybody fucks up from time to time. Good mental health does not include perfectionism, a certain impediment to actually making progress in this world.
I'm not a trained psychologist, nor am I well versed in therapy talk, but I know a few things about you. You have undoubtably done my some things in your life that you wish you hadn't. That does not define you. Once you honestly acknowledge to yourself the part you played in whatever it was and made an honest attempt to make amends for it, you can move on. In fact, if you don't move on, you're not being fair to yourself or the other people in your life.
One of the most dreaded parts of the 12-Step Recovery process, although ultimately, one of the most freeing, is the process of writing down what the program refers to as a searching and fearless moral inventory. What it really boils down to is actually making a list, with pen and paper, of all the stuff you feel guilty about along with your resentments towards, well, everything and anybody.
Guilt and its brother in arms, shame, are two of the worst impediments to leading a happy and useful life. They are intensely self-centered emotions. Like most things that are self-centered, they are cunning, baffling, and powerful and will lead you right back into self-defeating bad behavior. I don't know about you, but I can't live for long while wallowing in guilt and shame before I start looking for some relief. As an alcoholic, if there is one thing I know to be an unhealthy but sure fire way to squash some feelings out of existence, it's by drowning them in cheap bourbon. Of course, they will still be there to greet me when I sober up, but such is the illogical reality of the disease.
Since drinking stopped being an option for me in 2008, I had to find a healthy way to do two seemingly contradictory things: admit my part in the many, many mistakes I made over the years and let go of the guilt and shame attached to those things. I am a retrospective person by nature. If you've read this blog, you know that a lot of what I write is deeply autobiographical. My memory is weirdly specific. I may not be the best a figuring things out, thus my lack of math skills, but I can remember the hell out of a set of facts. What this means, practically, is that I deeply internalized seemingly every single time someone ever told me that I disappointed them, that I failed to live up to my potential or that I was just an asshole.
Step One was figuring out that not all of that was actually true. Even the people we love have agendas and issues. No one gets to define us to ourselves, but ourselves. I feel no guilt and no shame for my early and steadfast decision not to seek a formal university education. True, this decision may have caused me to earn less than the maximum amount of possible dollars, but so what? I had a great career in a field that I loved, with plenty of time to pursue things more important to me than work.
It is indeed a fact that I have been married four times, but anyone who knows me also knows that I am in a committed and happy relationship with a person I deeply love. Today is our 12th wedding anniversary.
We are the only people who really and truly know if we are committed to self-improvement. I'm a guy who had lots and plenty of opportunities to do better. Alcoholism is an ugly illness that is characterized by self-centered and dishonest behavior. It stops emotional growth and kills the maturity process. It prioritizes one thing above everything else in the world. Putting down the bottle down gave me the chance to do things that drinking robbed me of. I had the chance to be honest, first with myself and then with me family and the world. Lo and behold, did you know that being honest is the key to good mental health? Who knew?
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
A Mac Guy Gets Into Self-Hosting
Before 2025, my self-hosting experience had been limited to
running the media server software, Plex, on a 2009 iMac. When I retired
that machine, I didn't resurrect Plex on my new Mac, although I did hang
on to all the media files. I retired myself this year and resolved to
start self-hosting some services as a learning experience. My home
network consists of three Mac laptops, a Lenovo ThinkPad, that 2009 iMac
I mentioned, plus five iOS devices and an Amazon Kindle Fire (Android).
I elected to use the ThinkPad as a server, although the platform I chose, Unraid, will also run on a Mac. Many of the services it hosts are fully accessible on Mac and iOS devices. I picked Unraid because I have contacts who use it. It is not FOSS. A license that allows you to connect six hard drives in a RAID array is $49.
Unraid Benefits
• 1 year of free OS updates
• All Unraid OS features
•
Perpetual Starter license
• Access to Community Apps
• VM
and Docker Management
• Integrated Tailscale + VPN Support
•
Network-Attached Storage Dual Parity Protected Array, ZFS, BTRFS, XFS
Pools
In the two weeks I've been using it, I have installed a media server (Plex), a photo management server (Digikam), file sharing (Syncthing), and the Mac compatible VPN, Tailscale that allows geographically distant devices to interact as if they were on a LAN.
Other services I plan to investigate are:
- Nextcloud - a personal alternative to Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive etc.
- Self-hosted Calibre ebook server
- Paperlessngx - a document management system
In seeking advice from experienced self-hosting folks, I
received this detailed answer from a friend on Mastodon, @phillip@omg.lol
Unraid
"Unraid is probably the easiest turnkey solution if you have the cash to
throw at it. Easy App Store, Docker, VMs, NAS, etc. It stays easy while
leaving you tons of headroom to grow. There’s also a huge community with
tons of resources and docs behind it. The main con here imo is money.
Some have complained about performance issues, but afaik that’s only in
larger NAS setups."
yunohost
yunohost.org is pretty slick and even has its own App Store to make
downloading new apps dead simple. However, it doesn’t use Docker
containers (harder to switch to another platform later like Unraid) and
seems to prefer opening ports publicly. That not may be a con if you
were already planning on doing that anyways.
Yacht
For free + docker, I’d recommend a dashboard app like Yacht (or Dockge for even simpler). You’ll need to manually configure your apps, but it’s generally pretty straightforward and a “set it and forget it” kind of thing.
A Mac Guy Gets Into Self-Hosting
Before 2025, my self-hosting experience had been limited to
running the media server software, Plex, on a 2009 iMac. When I retired
that machine, I didn't resurrect Plex on my new Mac, although I did hang
on to all the media files. I retired myself this year and resolved to
start self-hosting some services as a learning experience. My home
network consists of three Mac laptops, a Lenovo ThinkPad, that 2009 iMac
I mentioned, plus five iOS devices and an Amazon Kindle Fire (Android).
I elected to use the ThinkPad as a server, although the platform I chose, Unraid, will also run on a Mac. Many of the services it hosts are fully accessible on Mac and iOS devices. I picked Unraid because I have contacts who use it. It is not FOSS. A license that allows you to connect six hard drives in a RAID array is $49.
Unraid Benefits
• 1 year of free OS updates
• All Unraid OS features
•
Perpetual Starter license
• Access to Community Apps
• VM
and Docker Management
• Integrated Tailscale + VPN Support
•
Network-Attached Storage Dual Parity Protected Array, ZFS, BTRFS, XFS
Pools
In the two weeks I've been using it, I have installed a media server (Plex), a photo management server (Digikam), file sharing (Syncthing), and the Mac compatible VPN, Tailscale that allows geographically distant devices to interact as if they were on a LAN.
Other services I plan to investigate are:
- Nextcloud - a personal alternative to Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive etc.
- Self-hosted Calibre ebook server
- Paperlessngx - a document management system
In seeking advice from experienced self-hosting folks, I
received this detailed answer from a friend on Mastodon, @phillip@omg.lol
Unraid
"Unraid is probably the easiest turnkey solution if you have the cash to
throw at it. Easy App Store, Docker, VMs, NAS, etc. It stays easy while
leaving you tons of headroom to grow. There’s also a huge community with
tons of resources and docs behind it. The main con here imo is money.
Some have complained about performance issues, but afaik that’s only in
larger NAS setups."
yunohost
yunohost.org is pretty slick and even has its own App Store to make
downloading new apps dead simple. However, it doesn’t use Docker
containers (harder to switch to another platform later like Unraid) and
seems to prefer opening ports publicly. That not may be a con if you
were already planning on doing that anyways.
Yacht
For free + docker, I’d recommend a dashboard app like Yacht (or Dockge for even simpler). You’ll need to manually configure your apps, but it’s generally pretty straightforward and a “set it and forget it” kind of thing.
South End of Central Park Facing Columbus Circle.
The land occupied by Central Park is probably worth about a trillion dollars, and it is a testament to good judgment that it continues to exist. It’s truly a national treasure.
Live in Concert

Typically, I just can't bring myself to part with the exorbitant amount of cash it takes to go to concerts these days. The thought of shelling out several hundred dollars to see a billionaire make music just doesn't sit well with me, no matter how much I love Paul McCartney or Bruce Springsteen. Then there's the whole "being around other people" thing that can sometimes be problematic if those other people are drunk or rude or both. Moreover, I may be a grumpy old man, so there is that.
Concerts weren't always crazy expensive and my tolerance for other people wasn't always as low as it is now. I don't have a long list of shows to reference. I knew someone who lived in Germany in the late 70s, and she had double fistfuls of tickets to huge festivals and concerts she'd made it to. The list of acts was long and storied Clapton, The Who, Yes, Muddy Waters, Todd Rundgren, Genesis, The Stones. Zeppelin, Iggy Pop.
I never went to any shows while I was in high school, too poor. The first time I saw popular live music was July 4th, 1983 at Ft. Jackson, SC when our drill sergeants marched us dutifully to see The Guess Who performing for the troops. I knew the same two Guess Who songs everyone knows, American Woman and No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature.
The next year, someone gave me tickets to see Heart and Eddie Money at the local auditorium. It's main claim to fame is that it's where Elvis's next concert was to be held before he died. I don't remember much about the show. I was there by myself and while I liked both acts, neither of them were among my favorites.
The best show I saw in my 20s was complements of my mother, who gifted my siblings and i tickets to see Paul Simon when he was touring for the album, Rhythm of the Saints, the one that came after Graceland, which is one of my all-time favorites. Paul sand all the old hits, lots of stuff from Graceland and engaged with the audience all night long. He even gave a shout-out to the section where we were sitting in appreciation of our non-stop dancing for the entirety of the show. Somehow we even managed to sway to Bridge Over Troubled Water.
During the following years, I saw two of my favorite acts twice. The first was James Taylor, performing just a few miles down the road from his childhood home in Chapel Hill. It gives me cold chills to hear that man sing "In My Mind, I'm Gone to Carolina" under a crisp, springtime Carolina moon. The other repeat performance was by a man I considered to be a living legend, Doc Watson, master of bluegrass, country, folks, blues and gospel music. Doc was blind from the age of two. Seeing him walk onto the stage, holding on to the arm of his accompanist, Jack Lawrence, was breathtaking. I was so familiar with his voice that when he started to speak to introduce his songs, I felt like I was sitting in my living room listening to an old friend.
A few years after they hit it big, Hootie and the Blowfish put on a free show in the center of the town where I live. We went down extra early to get good seats and ended up less than 50 feet from the stage. People were in a good mood, proud of having such a talented group playing their heart out for the locals. At the end of the show, Darius Rucker said, "We're from the south and when we play in the south, we like to do this song because people appreciate it." Then they launched into the David Allen Coe version of "You Never Even Called Me By My Name." It was glorious.
Some of my other favorite shows include Gillian Welch with David Rawlings at the NC Museum of Art. Before they went there separate ways, I also saw The Carolina Chocolate Drops with Rihiannon Giddens play a free show in Black Mountain, NC.
For the first time in ages, I'm actually going to a concert next weekend in Winston Salem. Wonder Woman bought us tickets to see Old Crow Medicine Show. These fellows might have gotten started way up in Ithaca, New York, but they wrote what is now considered to be the unofficial North Carolina state song., Wagon Wheel, which declares, "If I die in Raleigh, at least I will die free."
Headed down south to the land of the pines
I'm thumbin' my way to North Caroline
Starin' up the road
And pray to God I see headlights
I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a-hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight
Five New to Me Apps for a New Week
iDrive Cloud Backup
From Assaf at Labnotes - IDrive Cloud Backup I started looking into Backblaze alternatives, and so far iDrive is a strong contender. I chose the mini plan, 500GB of backup for $9.95 a year (it’s somewhere in the UI, look it up). It does have continuous backup, but so far I’m happy just running on a schedule. Can’t figure out how to get it to ignore repeat directories like every node_modules, or limit by file type/size (eg don’t backup large videos). And the UI is not pleasant, but neither is Backblaze (their restore is overly complicated), so just trading one deficiency for another. Oh, but they do give you 100GB of space to sync files between your devices.
Command Keeper
Command Keeper by Ari Feldman - Use Command Keeper (Free) to easily organize and access your command line snippets, shell scripts, and even SQL queries. It's ideal for app developers, web developers, or just anyone who needs to spend time working with command line interfaces.
- Build a Big Collection: Add or edit up to 999 command snippets (each can be up to 4K in size)
- Save Time: Automatically insert the selected command or query directly into your Terminal. Command Keeper works with your choice of the macOS Terminal or iTerm, Warp, and Ghostty (if installed)
- Always Ready: Runs in the background, so its always available and you can even pin your favorite snippets to always appear first
- Powerful Filtering and Search: Filter your snippets by category and search your snippets by command, description, and even notes contents
- Keyboard Friendly: Use keyboard shortcuts to create snippets and browse through snippets efficiently
- Preserve Your Data: Export your snippets to a CSV or JSON file and backup your snippet database
- Fast and Lightweight: Its simple and minimalist design ensures it’s light on resources
- Wide Compatibility: Works on macOS Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia; optimized for Intel and Apple Silicon CPUs
Readeck
Readeck - (Free)a
web app that runs as PWA on a Mac with self hosting available this year.
It's an open source read it later application
Curate
Your World
- Archive, mark as favorite, add labels to your content so you can find it later.
- Search anything in your growing content and create dynamic collections. Highlight What Matters
- Highlight the key parts of any text content and come back to it later.
- Browse and find the highlights from all your content. Save Video Transcripts
- Save a video link and Readeck will retrieve the transcript when available.
- Read, export, highlight and search the save transcript as if it were an article. Export to E-Books
- Take an article with you on the ride home or a full collection for a weekend.
- Readeck lets you export articles and collections as a single ebook. It provides a standard catalog on supported e-readers. Adjust to Your Needs
- Read your way; set a different font, text size and line height.
- Readeck lets you do all that and remembers your preferred settings for your next read. Browser Extension
- Save while browsing with the browser extension.
- This includes the content on websites you can access but Readeck can't.
Czkawka
Czkawka
- (Free) - An open source app with multiple tools to
cut down on accumulated cruft on your Mac.
Multiple
tools to use:
- Duplicates - Finds duplicates based on file name, size or hash
- Empty Folders - Finds empty folders with the help of an advanced algorithm
- Big Files - Finds the provided number of the biggest files in given location
- Empty Files - Looks for empty files across the drive
- Temporary Files - Finds temporary files
- Similar Images - Finds images which are not exactly the same (different resolution, watermarks)
- Similar Videos - Looks for visually similar videos
- Same Music - Searches for similar music by tags or by reading content and comparing it
- Invalid Symbolic Links - Shows symbolic links which point to non-existent files/directories
- Broken Files - Finds files that are invalid or corrupted
- Bad Extensions - Lists files whose content not match with their extension
Legcord
Legcord - is here to help you hate
Discord less. It's a lightweight, free and open-source Discord
client.
Highlights
- Uses a new lightweight electron framework
- Built-in game detection tools
- Very hackable for you developer types
- Made for privacy - Legcord automatically blocks all of Discord's trackers; even without any client mods, you can feel safe and secure! They also don't collect any data from you.
- Designed for Mac - Legcord is optimized for macOS, with a native screen sharing and a more Mac-like experience. It's optimized for both Apple Silicon and Intel macs! No more spinning fan when opening Discord.
Five New to Me Apps for a New Week
iDrive Cloud Backup
From Assaf at Labnotes - IDrive Cloud Backup I started looking into Backblaze alternatives, and so far iDrive is a strong contender. I chose the mini plan, 500GB of backup for $9.95 a year (it’s somewhere in the UI, look it up). It does have continuous backup, but so far I’m happy just running on a schedule. Can’t figure out how to get it to ignore repeat directories like every node_modules, or limit by file type/size (eg don’t backup large videos). And the UI is not pleasant, but neither is Backblaze (their restore is overly complicated), so just trading one deficiency for another. Oh, but they do give you 100GB of space to sync files between your devices.
Command Keeper
Command Keeper by Ari Feldman - Use Command Keeper (Free) to easily organize and access your command line snippets, shell scripts, and even SQL queries. It's ideal for app developers, web developers, or just anyone who needs to spend time working with command line interfaces.
- Build a Big Collection: Add or edit up to 999 command snippets (each can be up to 4K in size)
- Save Time: Automatically insert the selected command or query directly into your Terminal. Command Keeper works with your choice of the macOS Terminal or iTerm, Warp, and Ghostty (if installed)
- Always Ready: Runs in the background, so its always available and you can even pin your favorite snippets to always appear first
- Powerful Filtering and Search: Filter your snippets by category and search your snippets by command, description, and even notes contents
- Keyboard Friendly: Use keyboard shortcuts to create snippets and browse through snippets efficiently
- Preserve Your Data: Export your snippets to a CSV or JSON file and backup your snippet database
- Fast and Lightweight: Its simple and minimalist design ensures it’s light on resources
- Wide Compatibility: Works on macOS Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia; optimized for Intel and Apple Silicon CPUs
Readeck
Readeck - (Free)a
web app that runs as PWA on a Mac with self hosting available this year.
It's an open source read it later application
Curate
Your World
- Archive, mark as favorite, add labels to your content so you can find it later.
- Search anything in your growing content and create dynamic collections. Highlight What Matters
- Highlight the key parts of any text content and come back to it later.
- Browse and find the highlights from all your content. Save Video Transcripts
- Save a video link and Readeck will retrieve the transcript when available.
- Read, export, highlight and search the save transcript as if it were an article. Export to E-Books
- Take an article with you on the ride home or a full collection for a weekend.
- Readeck lets you export articles and collections as a single ebook. It provides a standard catalog on supported e-readers. Adjust to Your Needs
- Read your way; set a different font, text size and line height.
- Readeck lets you do all that and remembers your preferred settings for your next read. Browser Extension
- Save while browsing with the browser extension.
- This includes the content on websites you can access but Readeck can't.
Czkawka
Czkawka
- (Free) - An open source app with multiple tools to
cut down on accumulated cruft on your Mac.
Multiple
tools to use:
- Duplicates - Finds duplicates based on file name, size or hash
- Empty Folders - Finds empty folders with the help of an advanced algorithm
- Big Files - Finds the provided number of the biggest files in given location
- Empty Files - Looks for empty files across the drive
- Temporary Files - Finds temporary files
- Similar Images - Finds images which are not exactly the same (different resolution, watermarks)
- Similar Videos - Looks for visually similar videos
- Same Music - Searches for similar music by tags or by reading content and comparing it
- Invalid Symbolic Links - Shows symbolic links which point to non-existent files/directories
- Broken Files - Finds files that are invalid or corrupted
- Bad Extensions - Lists files whose content not match with their extension
Legcord
Legcord - is here to help you hate
Discord less. It's a lightweight, free and open-source Discord
client.
Highlights
- Uses a new lightweight electron framework
- Built-in game detection tools
- Very hackable for you developer types
- Made for privacy - Legcord automatically blocks all of Discord's trackers; even without any client mods, you can feel safe and secure! They also don't collect any data from you.
- Designed for Mac - Legcord is optimized for macOS, with a native screen sharing and a more Mac-like experience. It's optimized for both Apple Silicon and Intel macs! No more spinning fan when opening Discord.
Sunrise from the Carolina Coast
Great big beautiful morning to y’all. The Atlantic Ocean (Wrightville Beach) is just a couple of miles beyond that treeline. I might just have to go take a walk there after breakfast.
How to Check All Your Apps for Homebrew Availability
I don't think there is any question on how useful the free Mac
package manager, Homebrew, can be. You
can download and install an app with just one simple terminal command,
something like:
brew install bbedit
After it's installed, there is no ZIP archive or DMG file to clean up or manage. To update you apps installed with Homebrew, you don't need a special app or a subscription to anything. You just open a terminal windows and run:
brew upgrade
Your apps will be upgraded in place with nothing for you to clean up. To back up your configuration, you just run
brew bundle dump
and a custom brewfile will be created at the root of your home directory. If you get a new Mac od do a fresh install on your current machine, you can use that brewfile to download all your apps and packages with one command.
If you are late to the party and already have an /Applications folder full of your favorite apps, don't worry, you can use a simple shell script to compare what you have installed with what is available for the Homebrew catalog. It won't take long to replace your manually installed apps with their Homebrew counterparts.
How To Check Your Applications Folder
Here is the script. It isn't 100% foolproof, so read the explanation and don't empty your trash until you've verified that the app you got from Homebrew is the same as the app you replaced.
\# List all applications in /Applications and ~/Applications find /Applications -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "*.app" -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' app_path; do app_name=$(basename "$app_path" .app) echo "Checking: $app_name" \# Sanitize the app name for Homebrew search (replace spaces with hyphens, etc.) search_term=$(echo "$app_name" | sed -e 's/ /-/g' -e 's/\./-/g' -e 's/@.*//') \# Basic sanitization, might need more \# Search Homebrew formulae brew search "$search_term" | grep -i "^$search_term$" && echo " Found in Homebrew formulae" \# Search Homebrew casks brew search --cask "$search_term" | grep -i "^$search_term$" && echo " Found in Homebrew casks" done
Explanation:
- The script finds all .app directories in /Applications and ~/Applications.
- It extracts the application name.
- It performs basic sanitization of the name to make it more suitable for a Homebrew search.
- It uses brew search and brew search --cask to look for matches in both Homebrew formulae (command-line tools and libraries) and casks (GUI applications).
- The grep -i "^$search_term$" part tries to find exact matches (case-insensitive).
How to use:
- Save the script to a file (e.g., check_brew_availability.sh).
- Make it executable: chmod +x check_brew_availability.sh.
- Run it from your terminal: ./check_brew_availability.sh.
Limitations of this script:
- Naming variations: Homebrew package names might be significantly different from the application bundle names.
- False positives/negatives: The simple name sanitization might lead to incorrect matches or miss potential ones.
- Manual review needed: You'll likely need to manually inspect the output to confirm if the Homebrew package is indeed the same application you have installed.
In case you are wondering, this script and the instructions were written with the help of an LLM coding GPT. I've tested it on several different Intel and Apple Silicon Macs with solid results.
How to Check All Your Apps for Homebrew Availability
I don't think there is any question on how useful the free Mac
package manager, Homebrew, can be. You
can download and install an app with just one simple terminal command,
something like:
brew install bbedit
After it's installed, there is no ZIP archive or DMG file to clean up or manage. To update you apps installed with Homebrew, you don't need a special app or a subscription to anything. You just open a terminal windows and run:
brew upgrade
Your apps will be upgraded in place with nothing for you to clean up. To back up your configuration, you just run
brew bundle dump
and a custom brewfile will be created at the root of your home directory. If you get a new Mac od do a fresh install on your current machine, you can use that brewfile to download all your apps and packages with one command.
If you are late to the party and already have an /Applications folder full of your favorite apps, don't worry, you can use a simple shell script to compare what you have installed with what is available for the Homebrew catalog. It won't take long to replace your manually installed apps with their Homebrew counterparts.
How To Check Your Applications Folder
Here is the script. It isn't 100% foolproof, so read the explanation and don't empty your trash until you've verified that the app you got from Homebrew is the same as the app you replaced.
\# List all applications in /Applications and ~/Applications find /Applications -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "*.app" -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' app_path; do app_name=$(basename "$app_path" .app) echo "Checking: $app_name" \# Sanitize the app name for Homebrew search (replace spaces with hyphens, etc.) search_term=$(echo "$app_name" | sed -e 's/ /-/g' -e 's/\./-/g' -e 's/@.*//') \# Basic sanitization, might need more \# Search Homebrew formulae brew search "$search_term" | grep -i "^$search_term$" && echo " Found in Homebrew formulae" \# Search Homebrew casks brew search --cask "$search_term" | grep -i "^$search_term$" && echo " Found in Homebrew casks" done
Explanation:
- The script finds all .app directories in /Applications and ~/Applications.
- It extracts the application name.
- It performs basic sanitization of the name to make it more suitable for a Homebrew search.
- It uses brew search and brew search --cask to look for matches in both Homebrew formulae (command-line tools and libraries) and casks (GUI applications).
- The grep -i "^$search_term$" part tries to find exact matches (case-insensitive).
How to use:
- Save the script to a file (e.g., check_brew_availability.sh).
- Make it executable: chmod +x check_brew_availability.sh.
- Run it from your terminal: ./check_brew_availability.sh.
Limitations of this script:
- Naming variations: Homebrew package names might be significantly different from the application bundle names.
- False positives/negatives: The simple name sanitization might lead to incorrect matches or miss potential ones.
- Manual review needed: You'll likely need to manually inspect the output to confirm if the Homebrew package is indeed the same application you have installed.
In case you are wondering, this script and the instructions were written with the help of an LLM coding GPT. I've tested it on several different Intel and Apple Silicon Macs with solid results.
This Week's Bookmarks - Classic Marketing, LBJ, Goodbye Google, No WoW for 1yr, Best Books, Holocaust Survivors on Freedom, Photographers in Vietnam

The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great - In the 1980s and 1990s, PC Connection built its brand on a campaign starring folksy small-town critters. They'll still charm your socks off.
LBJ & the Great Society - Ken Burns - LBJ "voted against every civil rights bill during his tenure as congressman, then spearheaded the greatest civil rights measures since Reconstruction".
Why I abandoned Google search after 27 years — and what I’m using instead - Google = a once dependable search engine that has lately become nearly unrecognizable to anyone who remembers the days of 10 blue links and the motto "don't be evil."
Netigen A Year Without Azeroth - This feels entirely too dramatic, but yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my quitting World of Warcraft—an event that feels both overwrought and consequential.
Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far) | Kirkus Reviews - Warning! If you are a compulsive book buyer, like me, this might get expensive.
Our Freedom is Fragile: Lessons From the Jewish Children Who Fled Nazi Germany ‹ Literary Hub - "America is no longer a country of refuge but one that is preying upon its most vulnerable inhabitants, including children, who stand to suffer the most…"
How Photography From the Vietnam War Changed America - The New York Times This week marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. The images in this article are some of the most influential works of photojournalism ever taken.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Doing Hard Things

I know I'm in a good place mentally if I am willing to take on difficult tasks. There have been depressive stages in my life where the simplest things, like shaving or just taking out the trash have been overwhelming. I can remember standing in front of the sink, just looking at my razor and shaving cream, and being furious that picking them up and putting them to use was so difficult. Thanks to the miracles of modern pharmacology and a lot of lived experienced, I haven't had a prolonged episode of that kind of living in a couple of years. KNOCKING ON WOOD.
When I'm on the upside of my mood cycles, the sky can be the limit of what I'll attempt. In days gone by, the desire to do hard things would often come in the form of physical challenges. They weren't competitions against other people, just attempts to better my own previous records or to keep some activity trend upwards. I like data, so I've always kept records of how far and how fast I've ridden my bike or walked. When I was power lifting, I was constantly trying to break my personal records. If I couldn't do that for a one-rep maximum, then I would try to lift more cumulative weight. I will measure anything and attempt to improve upon it. I've done it with the number of books I've read and the number of words I've written. Setting goals works for me.
Speaking of goals. I know that some people dislike the concept. They say that you should read a book for the joy of the experience, not because you want to put another tally mark on a sheet. The thing is, everyone has goals, whether they write them down and think about them or not. Some people have a goal of watching as much TV as possible and doing as little work as they can. Of course, they'd deny that to be true, but the proof is in the doing. I just find that I tend to do better when I consciously set goals and make plans, then when I drift. I am a poor drifter.
My current voluntary hard thing is setting up self-hosted services on my home server. Since retiring, I set up a Linux laptop and messed with it enough to discover that I enjoyed the process. Swapping out the hard drive and converting it into a server was the next logical step. Despite a longtime interest in tech, I've never gone down the self-hosted rabbit hole before, So I don't have a ton of experience to draw from. I do, however, know smart people on the Internet. Some of them have said, "Please let me know if you need any help." That's an offer that I'm taking seriously, whether they know it or not.
I'm also doing some things in a few of my relationships that take some effort. My Dad and I haven't ever been real close. We've been estranged a few times, although not in the last few years. He's struggling with the reality of aging and the toll it takes on you physically and mentally. The hardest thing for him though is being the caretaker for his wife of 43 years, who has Alzheimer's. He is one of the few people she still recognizes, and my whole family admires how patient and gentle and loving he is with here, even when she gets confused and angry. Dad shared with me how lonely it is to live like that. I resolved to spend more time with him as a result, and now we meet for lunch every week. I love being able to cheer him up over a plate of food. He does his best not to mention touchy subjects, which I appreciate. I do the same for him.
These days, I try to have a routine. Since Wonder Woman is still punching the clock, I'm doing slightly more around the house. I have to-do lists and I cross off tasks as I knock them out. My tech projects and writing take up most of my days, and the evenings are given over to making home cooked dinners and spending time with Wonder Woman. I'm grateful for long stretches of good mental health, always hoping that I've finally beaten the black dog for good. Who knows, maybe I have.
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NYC Street
No matter how cool, trendy, or chic we get, the desire to keep physical contact with the object of our affection never leaves us. #streetphotography
Two Things I Love
Some of the best moments of my life have been reading books and riding bikes. #cycling
Crucial Track for May 2, 2025
"This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie
Which song would you use to introduce yourself to someone new? -- This Land is Your Land by Woodie Guthrie - This is one of those songs that few people have ever heard all the lyrics to. Woody Guthrie was a 100% radical human being, a friend to the working man and an enemy of the bosses. Joe Klein's biography, Woody Guthrie - A Life, is one of the most beautiful books ever written.

Crucial Track for May 1, 2025
"Highway Patrolman" by Bruce Springsteen
Share a song that tells a great story. Highway Patrolman by Bruce Springsteen on Nebraska - In just a few minutes, the narrator of this song lays out a tale that would be hard for a director to capture in a two-hour movie. It's about brothers who took different paths in the 1960s. One of them got drafted and went to war, coming home damaged. The other could have played it safe at home, but didn't. He took a job as a cop. On the fateful night the song is about, he gets called out to a crime scene of his brother's making. Instead of arresting him, he just chases him to the Canadian border and watched his tail lights disappear.

30 Years of Web Communities

This is my contribution to the May IndieWeb Carnival.
Although I used a local BBS and AOL chat rooms back in the day, the first online community I ever found a home in was at [Epinions].(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinions) It was a dotcom company that paid you to write reviews of commercial goods, including books and albums. You could use HTML to dress up what you wrote, so there was a small but satisfying thrill in learning how to be good at that. As usual, they had an off-topic category too, where you could write about whatever you wanted, and I contributed there all the time. People could follow you and send you private messages. I eventually outgrew it, but I tried to find a guy from there recently, after 28 years, and I succeeded because he's still using the same unique username.
When I had a Geocities website, part of it was dedicated to Vietnam veterans and their kids. I corresponded with quite a few men and women who were eager to have someone to talk to about their experiences. I live near a giant army base, so all the vets I know have comrades-in-arms everywhere they g0. The 18-year-old who got drafted from Iowa in 1967 and did his year in hell didn't always have that, and I was glad to hear them out, publish their stories, and generally just be as supportive as I could.
I was in some great bicycling forums around the turn of the century, one of which still sends me birthday greetings every year. I went as far as Georgia to meet folks from there for an organized ride.
For a few years, believe it or not, I took part in the local newspaper's community forum, which was mostly a cesspool of name-calling and ad hominem attacks on liberals. I'd write outrageously provocative stuff about W. Bush and his wars just to stir up the flag wavers. They doxed me regularly, and the woman I was married to absolutely hated me going on there. After a while, it wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped.
When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I kept an online journal every single day and posted to a website called Trail Journals. As a result, I had people up and down the East Coast who wrote to us and visited us on the trail. It wasn't unusual to meet trail groupies who knew all kinds of our fellow hikers from reading their journals. More than a decade later, I am still in touch with people I first met through that journal.
Then we enter the long dark winter of the soul—Facebook was all there was. I never really used Twitter for anything besides news, so I didn't find much social about it. My Facebook experience was much the same as many folks. In 2008, it was a place to keep up with friends and family and to reconnect with people from the past. In 2017, I had a viral post that caused me to get literally thousands of friend requests, many of which I accepted for the hell of it. I met plenty of cool people, including a friend I eventually met in Derry, Northern Ireland. I ditched it for good this year after Zuck sucked up to MAGA and fired the fact-checkers.
My experience on the IndieWeb since I joined micro.blog in January 2023 has been my favorite experience out of all of them. In my first 10 months, I' posted more on Mastodon than I did on Twitter in 15 years. I closed my Twitter account soon after joining the Fedi, not wanting to send any traffic to what is essentially the Nazi Bar of the Internet. I am a happy customer of OMG.LOL, Aside from Micro.blog, I also use Scribbles and BearBlog.
There are bloggers who I've come to be exceptionally fond of. Some are just damn good writers, and all are damn good people. Knowing them makes me a better person.
I have an account on Bluesky, but it lacks the community vibe of Mastodon. It's not really decentralized, even though the technology exists for it to act that way. I have to remind myself that it is a billionaire funded corporation and, like all of its ilk, destined for enshitification.
I do love Reddit, where I've had an account for over 19 years, despite its checkered past. Syndicating AppAddict there has driven lots of traffic to my website. Earlier this year, I volunteered to become a moderator of r/macOS, a subreddit with over 300K members. That's been interesting. I get a chance to help out newbies and to stamp out some toxicity, so what it lacks in actual fun, it makes up in satisfaction.
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My Brother is Coming Home

My brother is moving back to North Carolina. He hasn't lived here for nearly a quarter of a century. It will be good to have him available for doing brotherly type things.
Although I am 20 months older than he is, we were only a year apart in school. He and my Dad share a birthday that's special for another reason. It was the cutoff day to start school. If either of them had been born a few hours later, they would have had to wait another year to begin their education. As it was, they both went through 12 years of always being the youngest person in their class. Both of them are blessed with plenty of smarts, I'll get to that in a minute, so they didn't suffer any developmental issues as a result.
My brother and I had slightly irregular childhoods. Our parents were teenagers when we were born and got divorced just as I started school. I left home at 14, after having already lived a couple of years apart from he and my mom and sister. I left because I needed a fresh start away from a step-father I didn't get along with and a school that asked me not to come back over the issue of a little weed I had in my pocket. My brother left home to attend one of the most prestigious high schools in the US, the North Carolina School of Science in Mathematics. We didn't get to hang out much as teenagers, just a week here and there at holidays or in the summer.
When I graduated, I went into the military. When he graduated, he went to study astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland on a scholarship. Unfortunately, being far from home and in cold ass Cleveland wasn't good for his mental health and after a couple of years he came back to North Carolina, where he was accepted to the state’s flagship university in Chapel Hill. He changed his major to English, joined a crazy literary fraternity, made good enough grades to make Phi Beta Kappa and graduated on time. I visited him up there a on occasion, including once on my 22nd birthday where we ingested hallucinogenics and stayed up all night walking around in the snow visiting his friends, who all seemed to be aspiring poets.
He became a technical writer and married a nice woman from Chapel Hill. He eventually decided to go to grad school at the University of Georgia to get a degree in wildlife biology. He completed all the course work and did field research and hit the world's tallest mental block while working on his thesis. He ditched it, ended up getting divorced and moving to California to go to work for the World Bird Population Center. He is a bird expert of some repute to this day. He moved on to other jobs centered around wildlife, met and married a beautiful, smart woman from Marin County, They had a couple of kids. He worked for a good while at the Buck Institute, which studies aging, before heading back to nature related jobs in and around Pt. Reyes National Seashore.
I only managed to make one trip out west to see him in all that time. I actually went out more than that but weirdly enough, I had a trip to San Francisco the same week he had one scheduled to be in NC, so we missed each other. Now, as it happens, he's hit a rough patch in his personal life and he and his college - aged daughter are driving across the country in a few weeks so he can start over again in the east. I want to spend some time with him and do what I can to assuage the personal anguish that this kind of upheaval brings about. Our parents are both in their late 70s now, and I'm glad, as his he, that he will get to spend some quality time with them.
One of the things my brother is excellent at is maintaining relationships. He is still close to the people he went to high school and college with and has made time to go and see them on many of his trip home over the years, Hell, he's still friends with the kid who lived across the street from us when he was in the fourth grade. They used to collect comic books and make up their own superheroes to draw.
Luckily, we have the same outlook on a great many things. We're both non-religious, progressive and inclined toward writing the odd poem now and then. We both love the outdoors. Not only that, but we may end up getting a chance to get to know each other better at this advanced age than we have since junior high school. At least, I hope so.
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Glide — A Reading Aid for Those With Concentration and Perception Challenges
Luckily, I don't have a diagnosis of ADHD or dyslexia, although
anyone who spends much time online quickly becomes aware that those
challenges are common among people of all walks of life, including tech.
I'm old, so I lived a good thirty years before widespread Internet
access arrived in the 90s. In the olden times, I was a voracious reader
of books. Gradually through the years, my ability to concentrate eroded
bit by bit until, like most people these days, I rarely even read all
the way to the end of news articles unless I really force myself.
The developer from Applorium LTD contacted me and asked me to take a look at Glide, an app made especially for people with ADHD and dyslexia. The app has five different tools to isolate text on a page. You can choose one of six different colors to partially color the part of the screen that you are not reading. You control the opacity, and you decide how much of the page you want to highlight. You can narrow it down to just a thin line that moves down the page as you read of you can hide everything but what you are reading. It's harder to describe than it is to use. I got the hang of it in less than a minute.
Everything can be controlled from a menu bar icon or from user-defined hotkeys. There is a well-written guide to get you started, should you need it. It's not long or difficult to understand.
I've got to say, that using the app to read a detailed article on some complicated Linux related material really helped me concentrate in a way that I didn't expect. It has practically no impact on my computers' performance, so I will have no problem toggling it on whenever I have the need to make the extra effort to retain important info.
The app is currently $5.99 in the App Store.It appears that the developer is responsive to user input, as he has made numerous updates since first releasing the app. Almost every element in the interface, from color, to opacity to line height can be adjusted.
Even if you don't feel that you require this app, please suggest it to anyone in your circle with concentration or perception challenges.
From the Amalfi Coast
A view inland from Italy’s Amalfi Coast courtesy of my daughter, who is currently traveling there.
Teasing It Out

There isn't much sacred in my family. By that, I mean that practically anything anyone has ever done at any time in their life, ever, is fair game to bring up and use against them for a laugh. It's never done in a mean-spirited manner. I'm not saying that the butt of the current joke is always happy about it. It's just that they know their day will come. What goes around, comes around. I don't remember consciously making this a requirement that Wonder Woman had to meet before I married her, but she met it anyway. And how. Even my step-daughters who were both adults when I met them are also ruthless teasers of their saintly mother and their own offspring.
Today is our Elizabeth's birthday. In the text I sent her this morning, I related an entry from my journal. Five years ago, I answered a prompt for the daily entry. "Who is the funniest person you know?" My answer was "I’m going to say Elizabeth, followed closely by Jennifer. Lizzie has that understated absurdist sense of humor that I identify with. The time she explained that the older boys thought that Will and Aiden were going to McDonald's EVERY DAY because they found trash in the car ONE TIME is still one of the funniest observations I’ve ever heard a parent make about their kids. It was just her delivery and the believability of what she says."
My oldest daughter is not ashamed of one of her finest legalistic moments, eating cereal from a mixing bowl to get around my "one bowl rule." And my son is still the same sweet person, who once got mad at his sisters when they were children. the meanest thing he could think of to retaliate was to threaten to buy two boxes of Junior Mints and then refuse to share with them because that would sure as hell show them who was boss.
Jennifer, the youngest of all five of our kids, can be pretty scathing when it comes to recalling her Mom's finest moments. Wonder Woman often gets the short end of the stick when it comes to food at endurance events. She has celiacs and can't eat wheat, which rules out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pop tarts and other assorted sweets that race organizers offer. Jennifer loves to tell the story of her Mom yelling that she "Didn't want another fucking banana" once at a race having grown sick of that being the only thing she could eat at aid station after aid station.
The kids love to tease me for the times when I failed to rise to the manliness some occasions seem to have required. We had wiener dogs when the kids were in school, miniature ones. We were in front of the house with one of them this particular night when a massive Rottweiler entered the yard and began to menace our pooch. My son was there with me. Instead of dealing with either of the canines, for some reason, the only thing I could think to do was to begin yelling at my teenage boy "Get the dog! Get the dog!" I was frozen in place, unable to move, commanding a kid I outweighed by a hundred pounds to stare down a Rottweiler. It was not my finest moment.
He also mocks my one and only attempt to engage in his hobby of Japanese kendo fighting. It's conducted with bamboo swords. When I was a kid, and we did play sword fighting, we just tapped sticks together , which is what I thought he and I were going to do. When he announced that the bout was on, I was pretty nonchalant, ready to tap sticks. Not him. He took his kendo sword and proceeded to wail on my bare hands about 10 times in as many seconds. It was excruciating. I yelled, threw the sword down and told him that he was a jerk. But the part he likes to bring up was that I then called him a sadist for his joy in causing his old man so much pain. This was after the Rottweiler incident, so he might have just been paying me back for putting his life in danger.
Good opportunities for teasing never die. The first time I went with my wife to Asheville, we crossed the French Broad River going into town. She misread the sign and asked why they named it the French Bread River, and thus it has been named ever since, much to her chagrin. So, I'm warning you all right now. If we ever hang out, don't slip up because I will never let you forget it.
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NameQuick Comes in Handy
No matter how consistent you are, your computer is more consistent. One of my hobbies requires me to do frequent file exports, and I've just never come up with a consistent naming scheme to provide me the information I want at a glance. I always have to get info or switch Finder to show details to differentiate between different versions of the files I use. NameQuick, an Ai-driven file naming utility by indy developer Josef Moucachen, is a full-featured app with numerous automation options.
There isn't a free trial, but there is a three-day period to get a refund, so you can still safely see if the app works for you. You have to enter a registration key to use the app. There are currently two licensing options, $19 for one Mac and $29 for three Macs, and priority tech support. Those are one-time payments and not subscriptions.Both of these options require you to use your API keys from Open AI or Gemini, or you can use Ollama, a local LLM. If you don't have an API key, the link to get one is in the app.
NameQuick requires accessibility access and asks that you enable notifications. You have the option to turn on full-disk access if you would rather not bother approving various folders one at the time.
When setting up the app, you can set up watched folders and any new files that are placed in them will be renamed based on their content and any rules you set up. You can specify that only files that begin a certain way get renamed, or that only files with a certain extension. You can have AI extract patterns from your files to include in the name, such as the name of a client or project, the location of a photo shoot or the date.
You can invoke NameQuick by a user definable hot key or by selecting files in the finder and using the menu bar icon.
I tested the app on some random photos I recently used in a blog post. I had it rename some PNG files of screenshotted text quotes, and I threw some complicated CSV files at it. I also had it parse out files names from a folder of PDF invoices. Out of 25 files, I only had to manually rename one that, I felt, wasn't adequate. I used both OpenAI and Gemini in my testing.
I would like to see the developer add integration into the services' menu, since I use that often in my workflows. I am also an automation junkie, so having shortcut support would also be nice. I would like to be able to click on a file or group of files and have "Rename with NameQuick" as an option. The other feature request I have is the ability to include file attributes as variables in the name, such as the file creation date or camera info from EXIF data.
"NameQuick supports a comprehensive range of file types including • Images: PNG, JPG, JPEG, HEIC, WEBP • Documents: PDF, TXT, MD • Spreadsheets: CSV • Video: MP4, MOV, AVI, MPG, MPEG, WMV, 3GP, WEBM, FLV • Audio: MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, M4A, OGG, OPUS"
Rocky Mountain Spring
I went to Colorado on vacation, thinking the weather would be like it as home. I brought multiple pairs of shorts and no jacket. This is what April 29th looked like. What a dummy!
Appalachia is Beautiful
A view of Tennessee from a Virginia mountaintop near Bristol. No wonder JD Vance wishes he was from there instead of hundreds of miles away.
Why Do You Feel Like Crap?

One of my life-long problems before I got sober was this feeling of being terminally unique. I was quite sure that no one could understand the complexities of my troubled life. I had my mental list of Bad Things That Have Happened To Me. Then there was my job where I was rarely treated fairly. Who could even beginning to understand my childhood and all the places I'd lived and the fact that I'd left home so early. Add all of that into my habit of marrying people who didn't make me happy PLUS this damn drinking too much situation. I really felt doomed.
The first time I heard someone else say "I've felt different my whole life", my head whipped around. Say what? You too? It's a common theme among alcoholics and addicts. Hell, maybe even normal people occasionally feel different, I'm told. Because we are all variations on a theme, the solution to whatever ails us an a given day isn't as complicated as we might make it out to be. There are a finite number of problems and a finite number of solutions. All most of us need is just some help cutting through the fog.
That's where this simple web site comes in. It's not a complicated AI model requiting you to take an online personality test. No, it's a universal, one size actually does fit all solution to what ails you. Whoever programmed this little gem was wise indeed. Just start clicking buttons, be honest and do what you are told. By the end of it, you won't feel like crap anymore.
Nazis With Good Manners

Unlike most normal people, I've spent a considerable amount of time with criminals convicted of some of the most heinous crimes you can imagine. I've had conversations with men who killed their children, their wives and police officers. I'm not talking about one-off conversations either. Don Woods killed his wife in front of their son while in a drunken blackout. I talked to Don every working day for years, since his prison job assignment was in the area I supervised. He was unfailingly polite and obedient, never complained, made me a card when my grandfather died and called me Mr. Plummer, even though he was 20 years older than me. And, you know what, prison was exactly where that man needed to be.
I don't think I ever spoke a cross word to Don. But, at the end of every one of his work shifts, I escorted him back to the cell block and I locked him behind the cell bars. I did that because he was a convicted murderer. The state found evidence that he'd committed that crime. They charged him. They convicted him. They sentenced him to prison, as they should have. There are consequences for the actions we take in this world, and every so often that just can't be mitigated.
In January, I closed the Facebook account I'd had for 16 years. I had thousands of connections, years of photos and memories of birthday parties, Christmas celebrations, and the birth of several of my grandchildren. I enjoyed interacting with people on the platform. The problem is that although Facebook didn't do me much personal harm, it's run by a man to whom the truth is not important. It's run by people who openly promised dictatorial governments to inform on their citizens. It's used by the enemies of my country to interfere in our political process. How in the world could I tacitly say any of that was OK by using that cesspool of a website?
When Bull Connor, the police chief of Birmingham, Alabama in the early 60s had the cities firefighters turn their high-powered hoses on peaceful civil rights demonstrators, there were journalists there to take photographs. There were editors with courage to run those photos in the newspaper. Faced with those images and others of police dogs being turned on people, the US finally got to the point it needed to get to. Despite the low opinions many had about "trouble-making Negroes", the average citizen decided that no one should be treated the way blacks were treated in the South. We passed a Civil Rights law. We finally got as close to universal suffrage as we are ever going to get.
I realize that there are many people today who would prefer to live in a nation where there isn't so much political tension. That's understandable. I don't like the tension either, but I'm not going to pretend the solution is silence or the acceptance of beliefs and behaviors that fly in the face of my core beliefs. A political disagreement is when we have different ideas on what the property tax rate should be. When we don't agree that all people are entitled to the same basic human rights, that isn't a political issue. It's an issue of morality and ethics. On that, there is no compromise, nor should there be.
It is not OK to think that anyone who criticizes Israel needs to be deported or that trans women should be arrested for using the wrong bathroom or that it's OK to decimate scientific research or OK to remove references to our nation's African-American heroes from museums. People with those attitudes are immoral and unethical. They are mistaken, and they don't deserve a comfortable life or any effort on my part or your part to respect our differences. I don't care how nice they treat me personally or how many hours they volunteer with the Boy Scouts. They are evil and despicable, and I don't want anything to do with them.
Have I made myself clear?
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It Might Be Time to Get Rid of Backblaze
Backblaze offers two products to Mac users. The first and oldest
is an always on backup service that backs up your entire hard drive to
the cloud. In the event of a hard drive crash, theft or disaster, they
will mail you a USB drive with the entire contents of your drive so that
you can restore to a new device. For incremental restorations, you can
recover files online after making a request for what you want. Their
other product is online storage similar to Amazon's AWS or Microsoft
Azure.
The personal backup plan is $9
a month or $99 a year. I've used the service in the past and was
impressed by how easy it was to use. I never had an issue
.
There seem to be numerous problems with the business end of the company that do not bode well for its future, however. Morpheus Research, a business analyst, recently released a pretty scathing report on Backblaze.
Backblaze, in our view, is the archetype of a failed growth business and its latest "restructuring" will do little to resurrect the company's woeful capital market performance or transform its undifferentiated storage offering. Its capital markets story has been kept alive by allegedly inflated cash flow forecasts, hidden internal investigations and accounting tricks, which appear to fuel exit liquidity for insiders.
What that means is the company has been using voodoo accounting tricks to hide its massive losses, and the stock and the company are headed for a big crash that could leave any Mac user who depends on Backblaze in a bad place. I would suggest moving to another service as quickly as possible. Wasabi has plans starting at $6.99 per TB per month that allow you to use your own backup software, like Arq to back up to their cloud servers.
Bighorn Sheep
It’s always a thrill to see native wildlife that we don’t have where I live. I took this photo of a bighorn sheep in Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Beautiful
Man, the Rocky Mountains sure are pretty. As an Easterner, all my mountain experience has been in the Appalachians, but these western folks just might have something going on too.
Answering The Forking Mad Questions

David, my favorite Scot, over at The Forking Mad blog has posed a set of simple questions for we IndyWeb types to tackle. Here are my answers. I'd love to see yours.
Do you floss your teeth?
If you are my mom reading this, the answer is, yes, every day. For the rest of you, the answer is no, mouth too small, hands too big.
Tea, coffee, or water?
I like them all, but I only get emotional over coffee. I like an artisanal pour over as much as the next guy, but in a pinch, five-year-old instant Nescafé will do.
Footwear preference?
I don't like laces so for the last eight or so years I've opted for Keene's slip on sandals. They last forever.
Favourite dessert?
I'm partial to fresh watermelon served with quality feta cheese.
The first thing you do when you wake up?
I hit the button on my coffee brewing machine, answer nature's call and check my phone.
Age you'd like to stick at?
I'm going with 48, my age when I last got married and also the year I was in peak physical condition and hiked 2,200 miles in one long epic backpacking trip through the Appalachian Mountains
How many hats do you own?
Twenty-three, primarily baseball style with a couple of flat caps, visors and winter beanies thrown in.
Describe the last photo you took?
My wife and grandsons moments after they finished an eight-mile ascent and descent of McAffee Knob in Catawba, VA.
Worst TV show?
Dukes of Hazard, casual racism and misogyny while mocking Southerners.
As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?
At various times I wanted to be a vet, a soldier, a writer. Two out of three ain't bad.
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RSS in an Integral Part of the IndieWeb Experience
In 2023, I was recovering from an illness and bedridden. I picked up my old iPad and opened my feed reader, which I hadn't done in years. Many of the blogs I'd initially followed circa 2014 were dead, but there were still a few actively posting. Out of boredom, I began to clean out the dead feeds and look for newer and better ones to replace them. That experience led to this blog post. I found so many interesting independent blogs that I decided that even someone like me could get in on the action.
In case you are wondering, RSS is a method of content delivery where information created by bloggers and publishers is delivered to a special program or website that you set up. You can subscribe to RSS feeds, usually for free, and whenever that blog or website is updated, the new information shows up in your feed reader.

Many people I now consider to be my good Internet friends are people I first discovered by seeing them on someone else's blogroll. I spend part of every day looking at my feed reader. Aside from the basic RSS mechanism I describe above, there are ways to use the protocol to do all kinds of things. The best site I have found to not only educate you on RSS but to provide you with access to a huge variety of tools and services is GitHub - AboutRSS/ALL-about-RSS: A list of RSS related stuff: tools, services, communities and tutorials, etc.
I encourage everyone from newbies to co-inventors of the protocol to have a good look around. Click on a few links. Try out some new tools for discovering interesting content.
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Make dupeGuru Part of Your Maintenance Toolbox
As a non-developer, I appreciate how difficult writing good software must be. There are a few tasks that it seems are nearly impossible to prefect. Finding duplicate images is one of them. Apps that use machine logic to identify images with different file names, different creation dates, file sizes and even image dimensions seem to have an almost impossible task. One of my ongoing projects is curating a lifetime of photos that include scanned paper photos, images from various digital cameras and every smartphone my wife and I have ever owned. The images have been in iCloud, in Google Photos, Amazon photos and one various Macs and backup drives through the years.
I am fine with using multiple tools. I realize after working on this for a while that no single application is going to find all the duplicates.
I found a great many dupes using Gemini by Macpaw.
I also used the freeware duplicate finder, ZeroDuplicates.
I'm now scanning the same directories with another free app and still finding files to remove. The app I am using is a free and open-source offering available on GitHub for macOS, Windows and Linux. It's called dupeGuru and it is pretty powerful in its own right. It has three modes: regular files, music, and images. "dupeGuru is customizable. You can tweak its matching engine to find exactly the kind of duplicates you want to find. The Preference page of the help file lists all the scanning engine settings you can change.
dupeGuru is safe. Its engine has been especially designed with safety in mind. Its reference directory system as well as its grouping system prevent you from deleting files you didn’t mean to delete.
Do whatever you want with your duplicates. Not only can you delete duplicates files dupeGuru finds, but you can also move or copy them elsewhere. There are also multiple ways to filter and sort your results to easily weed out false duplicates (for low threshold scans)."
This Week's Bookmarks - Famous Literary Couples, Stalingrad Incident, Web Design Museum, Unusual Landscapes, Eternal Helpdesk, Film Mistakes, Crucial Musical Tracks

F.Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
Famous Literary Relationships from Best to Worst ‹ Literary Hub - There have been plenty of great legends about literary love affairs over the years, though of course a great legend doesn't always mean a great love affair. In fact, it often means just the opposite. Here, I've collected a few of the worst (and a few of the best)—from what we can tell from our outside vantage, at any rate. You never do know what goes on in other people's homes. But you might have a better chance if they happen to be writers.
The Stalingrad Incident - In a historic depression, a black american seeks freedom from discrimination and professional limitations in an unlikely place: Russia. The forces of racism follow him overseas, putting his reputation and life in danger.
Web Design Museum - Discover old websites, apps and software - Web Design Museum exhibits thousands of screens and videos of old websites, mobile apps and software from 1990s to mid-00s
24 of the world’s most unusual landscapes - While there are plenty of awe-inspiring man-made destinations around the globe, nothing is as creative as nature. From trees that resemble monsters, to colorful sinkholes, towering rock formations and waterfalls of molten lava, these are some of the most unusual and fascinating landscapes in the world.
The Alabama Landline That Keeps Ringing - If you sit at the James E. Foy Information Desk in the Melton Student Center at Auburn University, answering the phones on a Wednesday night, you might be responsible for answering a question like this: “If you died on the operating table and they declared you legally dead and wrote out a death certificate and everything, but then you came back to life, what are the legal ramifications? Do you technically no longer exist? Do you have to be declared undead by a judge?”
FXRant The Movie Mistake Mystery from Revenge of the Sith - Not just Star Wars - this site has mistakes that made it on to the screen of Goodfellas Aliens, Glory, The Dark Knight, The Abyss and more
Crucial Tracks – the songs that made you - There are points in your life that are defined by music. Whether it’s a song that introduced you to a genre of music that changed the direction of your tastes and style, or a lyric that made you think about the world in a different way. Songs represent relationships. Songs trigger memories. These are all crucial tracks.
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Juvenile
I watched this youngster grow up. I spent so much time with him that I became invisible in his eyes. He often came within a foot or two of me and seemingly learned to pose for pictures.

Red Pandas - Virginia Edition
The red pandas at the Norfolk, VA live in a habitat that visitors wall through. It’s a series of giant oak trees interspersed with towering decks.
A Beautiful Three Day Hike on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia

I'm often asked to recommend hikes along the Appalachian Trail, a national scenic trail in the Eastern United States that stretches from Georgia to Maine, touching 14 states. My suggestions are typically conditional. If I don't like you, I'm definitely going to suggest you go to Pennsylvania, a state notorious for its extremely rocky conditions that makes hikers curse the slow going and their painful feet.
If you are a stone badass, I'll tell you to head for New Hampshire and Southern Maine. It's often said that 80% of the hard hiking on the AT occurs in that final 20% of the trail.
If you're a good friend in average shape, then I'll advise you to head for the area near Roanoke, VA where you can find a 37-mile loop that will take you to Virginia’s Triple Crown of hiking.
You will hit three beautiful and iconic locations:
Apps For Travelers
When I travel, my phone ceases to be an entertainment and
diversion device and turns into a real tool. Whether I'm staying in town
or on an outdoor adventure, I rely on my phone for directions and
information about things to do and places to go. Here are a few of the
apps I find helpful.
History Pointer
History Pointer uses your current location to show you locations on the National Historic Register. I was amazed to see how many places in my own hometown were listed. You get maps, Wikipedia excerpts and an augmented reality tour. ($4.99)
Gas Buddy
Last weekend, my gas light came on while I was way out in the country carrying my granddaughter to work at the horse farm that employs her. Luckily, I have Gas Buddy installed. I use it without signing in and only letting it use my location when I'm actively searching for gas.
Organic Maps: Offline Maps
There are some excellent offline map apps that are very expensive. Then there is Organic Maps, an excellent offline map that's free. You just need to plan ahead and download the maps for the area where you plan to travel. It does directions for walkers, cyclists and drivers. It uses Open Street Maps data and was just updated this month.
Rego
Rego bookmarks geographic locations. Whenever we travel, it's easy to find places where we've enjoyed eating in the past. The same with coffee shops and hotels and rental properties. Adding a new location can be done onsite, from an address or pulled from the metadata from a photograph. Bookmarks contain GPS coordinates, street address where applicable, notes, date added and a stock photo or one or more of your own. You can also use custom pin colors and designate any location as a favorite. ($9.99 yr. / $24.99 lifetime)
iExit
If you do any traveling on the Interstate highway system, iExit, helps you find gas, food and bathroom access. I use it on every trip. The information is plentiful and up to date. (IAP $1.99 to remove ads)
Street Photography
Although I prefer black and white for street photography, occasionally something about an image calls for color. 
I've Never Been This High Before
At the summit of Pike’s Peak after riding the train up from Manitou Springs
Get Plain Text - Adds a Feature the Mac Lacks
People who work with text a lot are familiar with the Mac shortcut to paste the clipboard as plain text - Command + Shift + Option + V. This shortcut works in many native Mac applications like Pages, Mail, and Safari. When you copy content from a source and use this shortcut to paste, it automatically strips away any formatting. While the shortcut is highly versatile, it only works sometimes. Applications like Microsoft Word or third-party software may not support it natively. You can learn application-specific methods of pasting as plain text. Word has a way to do it. So does Google Docs. It is easier, however, to find and use an application that will just take care of this for you.
A good choice is an app that has been round for over a decade, Get Plain Text, available for free (with an IAP to tip the developer if you'd like to.) "It instantly removes everything unneeded: colors, typeface size, style (for example, boldface/italics), hyperlinks, images, etc. In other words, everything that isn’t plain text! Now you can put plain text in your letters and documents using the copy/paste functions, without having to clean it up manually. Get Plain Text will convert any bit of text into plain text, no matter where you copied it from (a website, PDF document or elsewhere). You can activate the feature manually, or check “Automatically remove formatting” to make the app take care of it every time you copy something."
There are other apps that offer similar functionality if you are sketched out by the length of time since this app has been updated (9 years, LOL). The handling of text formatting is long-established, programmatically, so IMHO, there's nothing to fear.
- TextSoap - $50, multifunctional, also available through Setapp
- PurePaste (free) from Sindre Sorhus - always a good choice. This app can exclude certain apps, preserve links, normalize (quotes, newlines, lists, etc.) and also remove tracking parameters from URLs.
- Some clipboard managers offer this feature as an option in their settings, including PasteBot($12) and ClipMenu (free).
Tips for Organizing Photos

One of my ongoing projects is organizing a lifetime of digital photos. My collection includes all the smartphone photos taken by my wife and me, the DSLR photos we've saved and scanned photos of multiple generations. The images have been gathered from iCloud. Google Drive, Amazon Photos, family photo albums and many different backup drives accumulated over time. The process includes the removal of duplicate images, renaming, adjusting date information, performing face recognition , tagging and backing everything up. I realized soon after I started that I also need to segregate images that aren't personal, meaning illustrations for blog articles and the many, many photos I've taken at work that still have some usefulness but aren't appropriate to be included in a family collection.
The ultimate goal of organizing photos is being able to quickly find what I am looking for based on these criteria:
- People
- Date
- Location
- Content
- Camera type
So, if I want to find a picture of my brother holding a parrot from a beach trip in 2014 that I took with my iPhone, I have multiple ways to narrow down the search. For people willing to let Google, Amazon or Apple have complete access to their photos, this is simplified by letting their powerful servers do a great deal of the hard work. If, like me, you want to have more privacy, you have to do a great deal of the organization manually or find applications that can do the work on your computer without relying on the Internet.
I decided to use a free and open-source image management program that works on Mac and Linux called Digikam.
I am temporarily using another application with local AI, called Peakto, which can find photos according to subject without using the Internet.
Here are a few tips on photo management
The Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Photos Tips and Tricks - Are you tired of scrolling through endless photos on your phone or computer, trying to find that one specific picture? Organizing your photos can seem like a daunting task, but with the right tips and tricks, it can be a breeze. In this ultimate guide, we’ll cover everything from creating folders to utilizing software programs, so you can finally have all your memories in order.
What are the best practices for photo organization - Organizing your photos is not an easy task. Where do you start? What is the best way to proceed? Often, we wait until we need to find those photos for a birthday album, website or book before we realize that our photos are disorderly and difficult to locate. Rather than wait till the last minute, only to find ourselves frustrated and annoyed, we could be proactive and follow the advice of experienced photographers.
How To Organize Your Photos, From Backing Up To Tagging Life Kit NPR - We take hundreds and thousands of photos these days because we can. Long gone are the days of film rolls limited to 24 shots. Storage is trending cheaper and more infinite. You don't want to miss any of your dog's cute moments or your kids' as they grow up. But when we have so many digital images and we want to cull them down a bit and get organized, where do we even start?
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Past Me, Present Me, Future Me

The person who causes me more unnecessary work and aggravates me to no end, is that jerk, Past Me. Let me tell you how much he has complicated one of my current projects.
I got an Aura frame for Christmas. It's one of the best gifts I've ever received. It's an electronic picture frame to which my kids can add photos from an app on their phones. I get regular updates on what they are up to. Wonder Woman will sometimes just sit in our living room and watch the photos flow through, commenting on each one as we relive favorite memories. Don't judge me, but there are more than one computer screen also visible in our living room. I got the idea to have them scroll through our entire photo collection using either a screen save or one of several apps. I would rather not curate a collection for it to use, so I just set it to shuffle our library.
Wonder Woman is always doing favors for future Wonder Woman. One of the things she does id quickly delete any non-keepsake photos or memes that end up in her photo library. There is no version of Lou that can be bothered to do this regularly. As anyone in IT can tell you, there are certain types of photos that populate our photo collections. The usable life span for these images is about five minutes, just long enough to get back to a computer and enter information from the photo into some sort of tracking system or management console. These images include:
- Photos of various serial numbers we need when making warranty support phone calls
- Lots of pictures of IP addresses as reported by computers, printers, switches, and the like
- Bar code stickers with asset information for the organization we work for
As a 21st century citizen active on the Internet, I also find it pleasurable to find and share memes that are funny and though provoking. I've done this thousands of times. I know this because I have thousands of undeleted meme in my photo collection. The mad girlfriend meme is represented no less than 22 times in different versions. As humorous as this is, it's not something I want to show up while I am trying to enjoy photos from old trips or my family.
I'm also one of those people who take pictures of my food. It doesn't have to be remarkable or beautiful food either. It's just a way to tag my location when I go out to eat. I have so many damn pictures of fried eggs sitting on top of SOS on toast. I could make an entire album out of just taco pictures. Haha, funny, except Wonder Woman doesn't think so when they scroll past her.
The other categories of strange photos, of which I have way too may, include random shots I took at particular venues to geotag a location for later use. There are also many images from the grocery store that I took, so Wonder Woman could give me the assurance that I was purchasing the correct product. A life-long bad habit of mine is writing down phone numbers but not recording who the number belongs to. I compound this by taking a picture of the naked number and leaving it in my collection. I have dozens of sticky note photos to demonstrate this.
AI is getting better at identifying objects in photos, but it is not good enough to quickly find ALL of anything, especially in large collections like mine. No matte how many times I scan my photos for pictures of bar codes or grocery carts, there are always remnants still lurking about. If I were a smarter man, Present ME would start doing future Me the favor of regularly culling this stuff from my phone. The problem is that Present Me is too busy cleaning up after past me to have the energy or motivation to worry about Future Me, mostly because without any evidence, I tend to think that gentleman will have unlimited time and resources. He is wonderful!
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Sunset over the Albemarle Sound
The waterfront at Edenton, NC, an old colonial town located on the Albemarle Sound.
Red Bellied Woodpecker
I love the distinctive sound these make, except at dawn, then it can be a little annoying. #birds
Calabash Sunset
This little community on the coast right at the border between North Carolina and South Carolina is regionally famous for its cluster of seafood restaurants. Folks come from miles around for the fresh caught fish, oysters and shrimp, served with hush puppies, coleslaw and iced tea.
What I've Learned on the IndieWeb

My White Collar Job
The one thing I haven't learned on the IndieWeb is how to spell it. I prefer the variation that uses "Indy" like the car race, the Indy 500, but it seems like the reluctant consensus, as evidenced by IndieWeb.org uses a different spelling, so for once in my life, I'll be compliant and go along with the crowd.
The first time I blogged, back in the 90s, the audience I interacted with the most were all older than me. I was in my late 30s , but my blog was about the Vietnam War, in particular its effect on families. Most of the people I corresponded with were veterans, which was fine, although I was trying to connect with people like myself who were in the next generation. I was glad to lend an ear to the men and women who wrote me. I'd been around those people all my life.
When I blogged my way down the Appalachian Trail, I really didn't have the time or energy (or the connectivity) to form relationships with people online. If someone left a nice comment on our guestbook or sent me an email, I'd respond, but mostly I just told the story of our unlikely honeymoon. A lot of what I wrote was to keep the memories of that time and place fresh for me whenever I wanted to time travel.
So, then I took a 12-year break from blogging. I was on Facebook a lot. I never left Reddit. I dabbled with Twitter and Instagram, but never anything serious. I had photographs on Flickr and SmugMug and a few other sites, but mostly, I didn't spend much time or energy being creative or writing for an audience any larger than myself and the voices in my head. When I became less mobile because of health issues and desperately needed a productive pastime, I luckily landed in front of my laptop with some ideas.
Here's what I have discovered since January 2024 when I wrote my first post on Micro.blog.
There are still friendly people
Since I've been around for a while, I know enough about Internet culture to avoid being a reply guy I also tend to be someone who is quick to hand out deserved praise and to treat people like I want to be treated. Lo and behold, using those "few simple tricks" seems to be the key to mostly avoiding toxicity. I lucked up be quickly finding OMG.LOL, the Mastodon instance I call home, which has puts people first. It's costs $20 a year, and that keeps out the cheap-ass trolls who spoil things for other people. I participate in other communities and have blogs on four different platforms, but the one closest to my heart are the smart, lovable weirdos who habituate OMG.LOL
The US is just a part of the world
The person who inspired me to get involved in Indie Blogging is Robb Knight, who is from England. The IndieWeb scene is decidedly International, and I count that as a Very Good Thing because my own country is a bit of a mess right now. I regularly interact with people from Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Scotland, Canada and beyond. It's taught me to look at things differently, to explain things in a bit more detail sometimes and to read with much interest the little tidbits of other people's homelands. If I ever have to take an English driving test, I am quite prepared for multiple questions about trams, as I am told the licensing folks put a lot of those on the tests.
It's OK to be honest
I am absolutely uninterested in creating an online version of myself, who doesn't talk about certain subjects, who has few faults, hasn't made many mistakes and knows all the answers. Instead, I'm the real me, who says what's on my mind, not to be shocking or provocative, but just because life is easier that way. In real life, I am a recovering alcoholic (16 years sober) and I've lived with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder for nearly 40 years, so that's the man I'm going to be online. I readily admit having been married more times than most people, and to have struggled with being a the father I wanted to be. I lack formal education, and I'm not ashamed of it. The people who decide not to interact with me over any of that stuff are not missed.
There are no perfect bloggers
I happen to be a prolific writer, a virtual fire hose of prose, if you will, but that does not make me anything apart from a person who has many files to keep up with. The people who craft one or two gems per month are 100% some of my favorites. IndieWeb blogging is not a competitive sport. It's not about Follower counts, monetization, or page views. As much as I admire clever web design and aesthetics, it's not about that either. To me, IndieWeb blogging is about community, honesty, and creativity. It's being a good neighbor and a helpful and hopefully inspiring presence because, damn, don't we all need a friend and some inspiration?
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Quick App Launcher - Pro, A Well Thought Alternative
There are various ways to launch apps on a Mac. The most obvious
and the one used most by new Mac users is clicking icons in the dock.
Apple also has Launchpad another built-in launcher. More advanced users
sometimes move on to keyboard-driven methods, starting with Spotlight
and advanced launchers like Raycast or Alfred, although some don't want
the added system overhead or extra features. Some like the convenience
of a menubar launcher like Xmenu
or Folder Peek.
Lately, there has also been a growing popularity among so-called pie
menu launchers like Pieoneer.
Another choice now available from developer Baser Kandehir, is a well-thought-out pop-up palette of applications through which you can sort in various ways. The app is called Quick App Launcher - Pro. You summon the application window with a user-defined keyboard shortcut or by clicking its icon in the menu bar. You can choose one of three window sizes to display your installed list of applications, which, without filtering, are displayed in alphabetical order. As you begin to type, the apps filter based on what you've entered. If it works for you, you can scroll through the list and click on what you are trying to launch. There are several methods of launching from the menu, including entering the numbers 1-9 to correspond with the grid pattern, typing a partial match, and clicking one of the choices or typing until nothing else matches, at which time the app will launch.
If you only want to use Quick App Launcher - Pro on a subset of your apps, that's no problem. In the settings, you can toggle off anything you don't want to launch with the app. Everything is turned on by default. You can also choose whether it launches Safari Web Apps or not. Other options in the settings include choices for the background of the application window, toot tip visibility, and whether numbers appear beside the apps while you search. Currently, the numbers are a little difficult to see, so hopefully that feature will be improved. The tool tip and window background features still need some refinement, as the changes I toggled were not apparent. The app does have dark mode compatibility.
The developer told me he is working on additional features and refinements. I would like to see the following:
- The ability to open folders in the finder
- The ability to open files
- The ability to open URLs
- Being able to specify what folders to search for applications, since some people offload big apps to external drives or keep them in non-standard locations.
Quick App Launcher - Pro is $5.00
as a one-time payment. It
collects no data and can be used in Family Sharing.
The Blog Questions Challenge - TV Edition

What TV Character from a Beloved Show Do You Wish You Could Be Best Friends with in Real Life?
I would really have enjoyed living in the world of Halt and Catch Fire, a show about a ten-year span of the early to mid-80s into the early 90s and the birth of the Internet. My brief interaction with corporate tech culture fell far outside the world of Halt and Catch Fire where the characters worked on cloning the original IBM PC, video games and an early search engine. My favorite character was Cameron Howe, a prodigy of a programmer, a genius and an anti-social, but fiercely loyal teammate. I've worked with some talented women in my career and enjoyed it. I would have loved to live in the era of this show, working at Cameron's video game startup, Mutiny. I love an inspiring, hardworking leader instead of someone who goes home early every day and reeks of their self-importance. Cameron was outspoken, driven, and unpredictable, all qualities I aspire to.
If You Could Binge-watch an Entire Series Again for the First Time, Which One Would You Choose and Why?
When Hill Street Blues had its run on NBC in the 80s, there was no such thing as binge watching. The best you could hope for was that your favorite show would get picked up for syndication. That would not have been a good fit for the show, as it had storylines that lasted throughout the season. Every time I missed an episode, the chances of me ever having a chance to see were slim. Then I got a job working during the show's airtime and totally missed the last seasons. By 2020, when I retired from the public school system, the entirety of the seven season run was available to stream. The only thing I liked about that period of my life was the 90 minutes a day I spent immersed in the fictional world of the unnamed American city where the show took place. It broke so much new ground for TV drama in general and police shows in particular. One of the lead characters was the recovering alcoholic police captain, played by Daniel J. Travanti. The other characters were all believably human. The writers were top-notch. Like many shows from the past, it couldn't be done today. The language was too raw and the topics too fresh. That's a shame.
Name a TV Show that Changed Your Perspective on the World or Taught You Something Valuable
Because I was the kind of kid who paid attention to the news, read the papers and listened to the radio, I grew up with a distinct, but distant familiarity with places like the Shankhill Road, the Falls Road, Derry, Omagh and greater Belfast. All of those places in Northern Ireland were the locations of bombings, demonstrations, attacks, and counter-attacks during The Troubles, the 30-year civil war that came to an end in 1998. Not until much later in my life did I come to know anyone from Northern Ireland, a place I later studied and toured. The show Derry Girls, about three Catholic Girls and their English cousin, was a coming of age comedy made ever so poignant by its setting during the last years of that era. It did a good job humanizing the struggle and the people affected by it. The first episode has British soldiers boarding a school bus to look for a bombing suspect. There were other episodes featuring attempts to bridge the gaps between Catholic and Protestant youth and even one that featured Irish Travelers.
Final Thoughts
I appreciate good TV. When I was too poor to afford cable, I told myself that avoiding television was good for my mental development, That may have been true, but I missed some good shows! I have fond memories of a great many TV moments, nevertheless, from the afternoon sitcoms of my youth (Andy Griffith) to the much anticipated shows of the 70s (Happy Days) and finally the golden era of the 21st century (The Wire).
Inspired by JoelChrono's Post answering the same questions
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Internet Life Hacks

Every once in a while, there is a post on Reddit that gets enough high quality responses to warrant being bookmarked and referred to time and again. Such is the case with this recent classic.
# What’s a personal internet hack you use that makes life easier but isn’t widely known ?
Some of the suggestions:
- ctrl+Shift+t - Reopens the last browser tab that was closed. Really handy when you accidentally close the wrong tab. (on a Mac it's command+shift+t)
- Get a great music recommendation each day and don't rely on your streaming services algorithm loop: https://1001albumsgenerator.com
- Don't support Google -> Stop using Chrome. Try Firefox with the uBlock (ad-blocker) extension, it's awesome!
- Don't support Google -> Use https://duckduckgo.com/ or try another one, they're in general pretty good these days.
- Temp emails, great for throw away accounts on various services: https://10minutemail.com/
- Get past paywalls: https://archive.ph/
- I always complete my emails and look over them before I put the destination email addresses in. Prevents me from accidentally sending something I don’t want to send.
- I pay for an email and domain service with the catchall redirected to my own email address - when I sign up for a service I set my email for that service to be [servicename]@mydomain.com, this way when I see spam coming in I know which bastard service sold my details, I then never use them again.
- Use https://cooked.wiki/ to view just recipes -- skip the long, meandering essay that leads up to what you really want. It's like a super-power.
- If you put swear words in your search, you won't get the AI generated answer.
- Learn to paste stuff using ctrl+shift+v It strips away any bold, italics, or colors and some other formatting options. Besides being useful removing crap from the clipboard and making your life easier when pasting for example data to excel it might be helpful when pasting data that came from an a.i. that could be detected and get you in trouble.
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Free App List Number 4
This is the fourth collection of free apps reviewed on AppAddict.
Links to the first three collections are posted below. I've downloaded
and installed each of these on my Mac. I've added many of these apps to
my workflows for getting stuff done.
Previous Collections
- A Curated Collection of Free Apps
- Another Curated Collection of Free Software
- AppAddict Free App List Number 3
Free App List Number 4
- Permissions Reset 2 - Free Troubleshooting Tool
- Zotero as a Free PDF Library Manager
- UTM for Virtualization
- rclone - An Easy to Use and Powerful CLI
- Syncthing - Free and Open-Source Cross Platform File Sharing
- Convert CSV Files to Markdown
- Hop to Desk, a Free and Open-Source Encrypted Remote Access Solution
- One For the Techies - SwiftDefaultApps
- Digikam is Replacing Apple Photos, Google Photos and Amazon Photos For Me
- Change the Location of Notifications With PingPlace
- SmartBackup - Free, Fast and Foolproof
- Pareto Security - Quick and Easy
- Local Send - Easy to Set Up and Easy to Use
- Using Joplin as a Reference Tool
- Fmail2 for Fastmail
- Stickier - Free Notes App with Power User Features
- Cog - Free and Open-Source Local Only Music Player
- Privileges - Operate Your Mac Safely
- Use KIWIX to Access Wikipedia and Other Resources Offline
- Librewolf for Security and Privacy
- Metadata Lab - Exif Editor
- Battery Monitor Health, Info
- Sandkorn - Comprehensive Information on Your Apps
- Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation
- Libation - Audiobook Downloader and Converter
- Captin Solves a Major Mac Annoyance
Opener Feels Like iOS
Opener is so integrated into the way I use my phone that I forget it's an app and not built into iOS. When you're browsing the web in your iOS browser and you come across a link you want to open, usually you have to copy and paste the address to get it into the app you want. Using Opener, you can go straight to the app from your browser or any app that allows sharing a URL. If, like me, you use an iOS browser other than Safari, Opener lets you send links to the browser of your choice. In fact it supports over 40 browsers! It's fully integrated into the share sheet and I have it at the top of mine. Out of the box it supports 240+ apps to include YouTube, Twitter, Ivory, Amazon, Spotify, Reddit and more. You can see a complete list on the developer's web site. It's $2 and well worth it in the App Store.
In the example above, I have an App Store Link on the clipboard. Opener presents all of these options for opening it.
This Week’s Bookmarks - Nachos, Seth Rogen, Satellite Pollution, Radical universities, Internet history, Photo Awards, Book bans

Subway's Doritos Footlong Nachos Are Here -- and Honestly, We're Into It - It all begins with a tray of Nacho Cheese Doritos, topped with shredded and liquid nacho cheese after a quick stint in the oven. When ordering at the counter, your local sandwich artist will chop red onions and tomatoes to incorporate into the mix before adding jalapeños and a drizzle of Baja Chipotle sauce. You can request steak or chicken for no extra charge
Seth Rogen's criticism of Trump's cuts to science edited out of science awards show coverage - A pointed criticism of President Trump's policies on science by Seth Rogenwas edited out of the filmed coverage of an annual science awards show, it has emerged.
"This is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and [bring] education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement."
An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1 - Ars Technica - In a very real sense, the Internet, this marvelous worldwide digital communications network that you're using right now, was created because one man was annoyed at having too many computer terminals in his office.
2025 Winners and Shortlist Galleries | World Photography Organisation - The Sony World Photography Awards is World Photography Organisation's principal programme. Established in 2007, it is one of the world's biggest and most prestigious photography competitions; celebrating the work of leading and emerging practitioners and attracting tens of thousands of visitors annually to its exhibitions worldwide.
Library Study Shows It’s Just Politicians And Activist Groups Trying To Get Books Banned | Techdirt - What's been noted before has been confirmed yet again: there is no widespread concern about the books kids have access to in public libraries. Instead, there's just the concerted, but effective, efforts of a small group of people who feel everyone else's rights end where their morality begins.
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MyApplications - An App for App Lovers
For the avid app collector there are a few tools available to help
catalog and curate the assortment of programs that accumulate over time.
You can use Apple's built in system report to get comprehensive
information but it's rather dense and not illustrated. You can use an
app like Apparency,
but then you are limited to a single app at the time. MyApplications,
available in the app store for 99 cents, serves as both a database and a
launcher for your computer.
The MyApplications general interface includes a count of the
number of apps you have installed, 414 in my case. It breaks the apps
down into publishers, for example I have 92 apps from Apple itself and
six from the wonderful developer Sindre Sorhus. Apparently, many
apps don't provide publisher information because I have a lot that are
not listed. It also breaks the apps into categories such as utilities,
productivity, developer tools, graphics and design etc. The categories,
while helpful, are a little too broad for my taste, for example I have
124 labeled as utilities and it seems that could have been further
narrowed into categories like disk utilities, archive utilities, etc.
The app interface lets you choose sorting by name or last
launched. It tells you how many apps you currently have running and how
may you have launched in the past day. If you click on individual apps,
you have the option to launch them or to get more information regarding
size on disk, location, language localizations, download date and date
of last update. A complete permissions report is included. The package
contents are listed as is a complete description, apparently from the
App store or developer's web site if provided. There are even screen
shots provided.
(This is a repost. I’m out camping with my grandkids and didn’t
have a chance to test anything today.)
Kids and Cereal

One of my recent pleasures is perusing old blog posts from when I used to sit at my desk in the family dining room in the days before I had a laptop and write stories about my children, a constant source of inspiration and entertainment in those more innocent times. They all grew up to be pretty awesome, so they are still inspiring but starting a business, getting massive promotions or conquering the frozen north aren't as funny as the stuff they did as adolescents. We didn't have a ton of money in those days, so having little people to make me laugh was economically necessary. These days I can afford Netflix. Here's another tale from the 90's.
Cereal Boxes
Late last year the cereal companies slashed prices by over a dollar a box on most brands. Suddenly, the lie I had been telling my children since their birth became obvious. When I said, "We don't eat Captain Crunch. All that sugar is bad for you." I meant, "We don't buy Captain Crunch. It costs four dollars a box." Now that the generic box of corn flakes (white box, black letters, CORN FLAKES) and the multi-media hyped Puffed Toast Cinnamon Crunch Smacky Flake Treats cost roughly the same amount, a new cereal culture is evolving at my house.
Any boxes of "sticks and grass" cereal purchased mistakenly or with an eye towards incipient diabetes are ignored or converted to bird food. After 2.5 children ate 4 (yes 4) boxes of cereal in one weekend, I had to lay down the one bowl per child per day rule. How did this go over, you ask. I can tell you in two words, Jethro Bodine. Yes, I caught my oldest daughter, Anna, with the mixing bowl normally used to make brownies for the church youth group (11 high school kids). She hoped that a quart of milk and half a box of Frosted Mini Wheats could forestall starvation one more day.
Some of the trends from the good old days are still with us for nostalgia's sake. No one will eat the last half bowl of cereal left in the box. I usually discover this when I venture into the kitchen after midnight looking for a satisfyingly quick snack. In quick succession I grab one and then another box of sugar coated vapor in an abortive attempt to find an entire bowl of cereal all for myself. I'm usually left with a mongrelized mix of stale Fruit Loops and Grape Nuts. There is always plenty of milk though. I buy milk two gallons at the time to lessen the number of trips I have to make to the grocery store. You may not know it but children cannot tolerate a closed milk jug in the fridge. Both jugs must be opened and it normally makes the most sense to the juvenile mind to use the jug that expires last----first. It is also a kid's rule to always, always, always leave on the counter the little locking strips that come on the caps of milk jugs. If a countertop is unavailable, the strip may be left on the floor or under the counter beside (NOT IN!) the trashcan
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Climbing out of the Lehigh Valley
The climb out of the Lehigh Valley near Palmerton, PA is one of the hardest stretches of the Appalachian Trail south of New England. When you get to the top of the climb, you are greeted with a wasteland under cleanup by the EPA from an old mining operation. #hiking
Infinite Mac Lets You Run Vintage Mac Operating Systems in Your Browser

It's hard to believe that Apple was once a scrappy little company, just fighting to stay alive and true to its roots, instead of the largest company in the history of capitalism. The fondness that many people have Apple products is tied into the myth and memory of the old Apple. People who long ago chose Macs, usually did so out of a genuine fondness for the company and the products they made. The alternative was Microsoft Windows at its most ruthless and domineering.
I's been a long time, probably more than 20 years since I last used Mac's classic operating system, meaning OS 9.2.2 and below. I spent many, many hours of my life on those machines, installing KidPix and Apple Works for public school kids and their teachers. I could image one of the original bondi blue iMacs in about 90 seconds using a FireWire 400 drive. I also imaged many older Macs by booting from a CD and imaging from a SCSI drive. Good times.
If you ever get sentimental for those days, or, if you aren't an old like me, and you just want to investigate what the experience was like, just hear on over to InfiniteMac where you can run one of many virtual Macs right in your web browser.
The site describes itself like this:
Infinite Mac is a collection of classic Macintosh and NeXT system releases and software, all easily accessible from the comfort of a web browser.
Pick any version of System Software, Mac OS, Mac OS X or NeXTStep from the 1980s, 1990s or early 2000s and run it within a virtual machine. An “Infinite HD” disk with representative software from that era is also available. You can also run a custom version with your choice of machine and disks. On some operating systems files and disk images can be imported and exported using drag and drop and virtual CD-ROMs can be mounted – refer to the welcome screen in each machine for more details.
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Pareto Security - Quick and Easy
I recently noticed an app on Setapp that I'd never tried, Pareto
Security, so I investigated it. It's a basic application that checks the
settings on your Mac and quickly shows you where you aren't following
the best recommended practices from security experts. It has links to
tutorials for every setting along with an explanation of why that
setting is recommended. Although it is geared towards less technically
advanced users, anyone can benefit from a quick scan.
Experienced Mac users are going to familiar with these best practices and will probably have legitimate reasons for any deviation from the suggested settings. Still, it convinced me to change my settings in a few areas:
- I use a third-party firewall app, but I have now also turned on Apple's firewall.
- I also turned on firewall stealth mode
- I turned off native file sharing because I use other ways of sharing files on my network
- I finally decided, for the first time ever, to try operating my Mac as a standard, rather than an admin user. I use an app called Privileges to convert to an admin account for short periods when I need to; otherwise I just enter the username and password of an inactive admin account, which every person should definitely set up.
- I'd delayed turning on File Vault, and this convinced me to finally flip the switch. I have no excuse for waiting so long.
Pareto Security checks the settings in the following areas
- Access security - makes sure all important areas of your Mac are password protected and that your SSH setting are optimized for security
- Application Updates: - Checks your browsers, security apps (e.g., firewall apps like Lulu), alternative terminal and secure messaging apps (e.g., Signal)
- Firewall and Sharing - Checks Airdrop, Airplay, Firewall and all sharing settings
- macOS Updates - It gigs you if you don't have automatic updates turned on, so take these suggestions with a grain of salt.
- System Integrity - Checks your boot settings, File Vault, Gatekeeper, Terminal secure entry, Time Machine settings, and Wi-Fi connection
If you don't have Setapp, you can download a free trial of the app from Pareto and run the checks. I don't see any reason why a personal user would want to run this app continuously but in a managed setting, it is one good way to make sure your users are following the best security settings if you are not managing them through JAM or something similar.
Hummingbird in Flight
I took this at 1/125s, and it was nowhere near fast enough to capture the wings without blur. #birds
The Doors of Santa Fe
I swear, this is just an average house in the neighborhood. Everything is old. Not a corner is square, and everything is still used in daily life by mostly working-class people.
The Walter Miller Homepage - The Funniest Website That Ever Existed

Warning: This Goes Way Back
Back in the days of accessing the Internet over a 56,6K modem, someone, probably on AOL told me about "The Walter Miller" homepage, the terribly mis-spelled and grammatically incorrect plain text website of the finniest stuff I have ever read. I'm serious. Con't click the link at the bottom of this post and start reading if you ae trying to drinnk something. You might choke to death or spray expensive red wine across the display of your MacBook.
A snippet from the landing page
ABOUT ME
Im orignally from California but now I live in rural Texas-a lonly area 2 hours from the nearest big city. Ive been here since last December. I moved here because Iam only 20 years old and divvorced and I owe the whole world money. So my family takes over my bills and debits in exhange for me to look after and take care of my granfather. Lets just say I have to haul him up on the crapper whenever he has to go-which isnt often and contributs to him bein cranky most of the time.
Our home consists of a trailor, some outbuildings, a toolshed, asorted shacks, and 2 halfs of a moduler home that were never put together and sit 50 yards apart with plastic sheets drapped over the open parts. We live in the trailor-the other buildings house the varied colections of My granfather. He has 170,000 hupcaps which maybe the bigest colection in Texas. He also colects apliances, spark plugs, books, plumming fixures, beercans, Indian blankets, cooky tins, furnoture, glasware, old typwriters, bottles and car parts, plastic bags, coffe cans, antiques, trashcan lids of pre-World War 2 era, manhole covers, rusty tools, stufed animals, basebal cards, 55 galon drums and steyrofoam. These are just a small sample of his colectibles
Theyre stroon across the whole area like a junkyard. The county has come after him many times. He also has 14 dogs and dog crap is eveywhere. Also the stuffed animals and indian blankets are outside-when it rains they get rancid.
The page is long dead, but it is preserved by the people doing the Lord's Work at The Wayback machine. When you click on this and other links within the site, you might think nothing has loaded. It has. Just scroll down a few dozen lines and pure vintahe Internet comedy genius will overwhelm you.
A vicious rumor - THE WEB'S ANONYMOUS | TIME
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Unlimited Internet, Ad-Free TV, Boneless Wings - Three Signs of the Apocalypse

Sign 1 - Unlimited Internet Is Not, In Fact, Unlimited
My Internet service provider sent me a nastygram today, or rather they sent a snitch letter to Wonder Woman because technically the account is in her name. They wished to inform us that we (meaning me) had FAR exceeded the normal amount of bandwidth during our current billing cycle. As a result, according to the nastygram, they will be throttling our connection speed during "congested hours" until the cycle renews. Did I mention that we pay an extra fee each month for an upgrade to our connection speed? Or, that our plan is called "The Unlimited Ultimate Plan"?
I went and looked at the data usage for the month. It's a lot, slightly over 3TB. I haven't been downloading torrents. You think I'm 12? What I've been doing is retrieving my data from Amazon and Google, primarily a lifetime of photographs, but also over 1,000 book purchases, split almost evenly between Kindle and Audible formats. After removing the limits that Amazon tries to impose on usage through digital rights management, I uploaded all the information to European servers.
Well, I guess a billion (trillion?) dollar bloodsucking corporations stick together because Verizon is now discouraging me from making full use of the service I pay them for.
Sign 2 - Ad Free Television Actually Contains Ads
I quit watching ad supported television a long, long time ago. Only once, in 2015, did I watch regular TV and that was only to follow the (almost) undefeated season of the Carolina Panthers. The amount of adverting in a football game, along with the collusion against Colin Kaepernick and the epidemic of brain damage put me off the game shortly thereafter. I pay less for the premium streaming channels than I paid for cable television, even with all the price increases. I opt for the ad-free experience because life is short, and I just don't want to waste it enduring marketing. Now that the fascists are in power and corporations can do anything they like without repercussions, one of the things they are doing is inserting advertising into the feeds of people who pay to opt out of it. What are we going to do? I know what I'll do. I'll go right back to the Lou of the early 21st century and start sailing the high seas again. I gave up the pirate life in 2006, but war is war, and I'll not be trifled with by Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, or anyone else.
Note to "Steve", the anonymous coward who left a comment and thinks that my mockery of torrents and my planned re-embrace of them are worthy of a confused face emoji. You might have a point. I haven't needed torrents in almost twenty years because I am willing and able to pay for the entertainment I consume - as long as I get what I pay for. If the mega-corporations who take my money don't deliver what they promise, then all bets are off.
Sign 3 - You Can Choke to Death on the Bones in Boneless Chicken
Dissenting justice: “The question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course they don’t.
“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people.”
Yeah, a man in Ohio had a bone from a plate of "boneless wings" served to him in a restaurant get lodged in his throat, causing a serious infection. A jury, using what we normal people call common sense, found in his favor when he sued the joint for false advertising. Not to be deterred from protecting pretend people (corporations) from actual real people with, you know, families and jobs, the Republican majority on the state appeals court decided that "boneless wings" describes a cooking style and is not offered as a description of the food you are paying for. They took away the damages that a jury of his peers awarded him in a decision decided by a one-vote majority, One of the dissenting justices was pretty scathing in his critique of how much the court Republicans suck.
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SmartBackup - Free, Fast and Foolproof
While I have long used Time Machine as my primary backup for my
Macs, it does have some drawbacks. If you go looking for a missing file,
it's a hit-and-miss operation to find the last known good copy of a
document, image or folder. You basically have to work your backwards
through your snapshots until the file appears. You also have to know the
exact path of what you're looking for unless you are willing to restore
in bulk.
The type of backup I need isn't a whole disk backup. I'm fine with Time Machine for that, plus I have the option of using SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner or DiskDrill. for copying a whole disk, something that is much more nuanced and complicated using AFPS than it was ever using HFS.
After testing several options, some of them excellent, others not so much, I decided to use the free product, SmartBackup because I liked its basic interface, multiple options for backing up, and its easy to understand and use restore mechanism which works through the Finder. SmartBackup will optionally archive changed or deleted files in timestamped folders. You can choose how long you want to keep these files. The restore feature includes a built-in search panel that will show you multiple versions of a file grouped neatly in the results.
The other attractive feature is the speed at which it backs up, especially to an SSD drive plugged directly into a Thunderbolt port. It's engineered to take advantage of SSD technology and even allows you to choose the number of data threads you want active at one time. The default, two, should be used if you are backing up to a mechanical hard drive, but from SSD to SSD, four worked better for me.
The built-in scheduler is simple. You pick a time and specify if you want to perform a daily or weekly backup. It will run in the background without launching a window and notify you when it is done.
SmartBackup works on Intel and Apple Silicon.
You can download SmartBackup at the developer's website.
Note - I tested three other products, two of which work well: FreeFileSync and SyncFolders Pro. The product that underperformed dismally was ChronoSync Express. I'd heard good things about it, but it was exceptionally slow and failed three times to back up my home directory. I was surprised because it had been recommended to me by a couple of people.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
Flying Into Salt Lake City
Whenever I go out west, I’m always struck by how drastically different the terrain is compared to the relatively featureless coastal plain here in the east, where I live. This photo was taken on the approach to the Salt Lake City Airport.
The Most Important Tech Skill for Every Single One of Us

What's the most important computer information you've ever lost? Was it pictures, something you'd written, your contacts or your entire phone or hard drive? It's a rare (or dishonest) person who can claim to have never suffered some kind of data loss. I have been asked to help recover wedding videos, a master’s thesis, decades of lesson plans and the accumulated files from an entire ministerial career.
Wherever you have information that is important to you, on your iPhone, Android, Mac or PC or even in a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox, do you know if you have taken the right steps to back up your data? A backup means at least two copies, three is better, with one of those stored offsite. Saving your files to a thumb drive or an external drive is not a backup if that is the only copy of them. Even keeping your files in iCloud or Google Drive is not a backup, if losing access to that account would cut you off from your data. People lose access to their online accounts seven days a week for all kinds of reasons. Do all those Google Docs that only live on Google Drive mean anything to you? If they do, then learn how to back them up today.
Back up iPhone - Apple Support
How to Back Up Your Android Phone WIRED
How to back up your Mac - Apple Support
Those 1 AM Thoughts That Keep You Awake

Some people are so selfless that they seem almost saint-like. They aren't common, but they aren't rare either. There are usually one or two in most work situations. They are the people who seem to have endless patience for answering questions and never seem too busy to lend a hand to people who need it. There isn't a time in anyone's memory when they hurt someone's feelings or made them feel bad. I have never been one of those people. I'd like to think that I'm just an average guy, one who gets a little impatient sometimes, a little stressed at others and who slips up from time to time and says things he wishes he could take back. I have a mental playlist of those occasions that just decides to start running through my brain from time to time.
Once a co-worker made a mistake setting up a school's computer image for a new year and didn't find it until she had erased and reinstalled the software on hundreds of devices. It happens. She was far from incompetent. She just made an unfortunate error and as a result had to do a lot of extra work. It could have happened to me a hundred times over. I was laughing about it with a couple of people on my team, nothing mean spirited, just being glad it didn't happen to me. Yeah, the problem was the person I was talking to was on the phone with her, and she heard every word I said. Ouch. I spent the next five years trying to make it up to her. I felt horrible. Still do when it pops into my mind.
Like many tech people, I joke about being my family's go to for computer issues. I write about it on this very blog. Because I've done this work for so long, it's a rare, rare day when a issue causes me any stress. It might be aggravating, but I'm up to most challenges given enough time. I forget that normal people don't have that mindset. All they know is that this expensive piece of equipment they rely isn't working, and they have no idea why or how to solve it. It is no joke. One Thanksgiving, I was at my poor sweet Mother's house when she came and told a group of us guys that she needed some help with some tech issue after lunch. I started joking with my brother and broth-in-law that they would have to help her because I just didn't have the patience for it, which was jerk of a move and made my mother cry, since what she wanted was in no way a big deal. Man, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I don't know what possessed me to be so callous. Thankfully, I have tried to be the most patient person who ever lived with every tech problem she's asked me to look at since that day. Lesson learned.
Let me be clear. I don't think I am some kind of monster. We all have our ups and downs. I have just as many good memories of having been helpful at work and supporting loved ones in tough times. I think we evolve to have these memories of our mistakes as a way to help us grow. Having a conscience is a survival skill, unless you are some kind of sociopath.
The difficulty in 2025 is that half the country have stopped evolving. They've stopped having a conscience. They no longer feel any empathy for those whose suffering they've contributed to. In fact, they seem to take some perverse pride in it.
Even during times when the economy has been in the dumps and I didn't have much extra money, I was still fine as far as having my basic needs met. I never wanted the state (my employer) to take money away from child nutrition or health care programs just so I could have more disposable income. I think it's a good idea to use tax money to do research on breast cancer and sickle cell anemia, even the chance of me getting those illnesses is minuscule. In no way would I ever think that winning the cosmic lottery and being born a middle-class white American makes me deserving of anything, rather than a poor immigrant whose struggles I cannot even comprehend. Only a sociopath would be uncaring in the face of suffering. Yet, here we are.
In the movies, generally, the bad guys know they are bad people. These days, we are surrounded by horrible people who seemingly have no comprehension of their own rotten souls. The head of the Southern Baptist Convention recently gave an interview explaining why empathy isn't Christlike. How do these people even sleep at night? I feel bad about hurting someone's feelings 15 years ago and my fellow Americans are celebrating their president taking away aid from a country under attack from an invading marauder. I just don't get it.
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Change the Location of Notifications With PingPlace
One of my favorite tech writers, Justin Pot, who
publishes a lot over at Lifehacker, reviewed a new to me app today
called PingPlace. If something happens on a Mac, someone is going to
figure out a way to tweak it. This free app moves the pop-up location
for notifications from the upper-right corner's default, to just about
anywhere else on your primary display that you'd like to see them
appear"
- Top Left
- Top Middle
- Top Right
- Bottom Left
- Bottom Middle
- Bottom Right
Reasons For moving the default location include the size of your monitor, or just plain personal preference.
The only real option in the settings is to have the application launch at startup, which only makes sense.
The apps requirements are a minimum of macOS 14 and accessibility permissions.
You can download it on GitHub, or even better, get it via HomeBrew.
brew tap notwadegrimridge/brew brew install pingplace --no-quarantine
Tree Rat Mad
I forgot to put out and chow for my backyard friends, and this gut came down to the deck to give me an earful and a few scornful looks.
The Ingredients of a Good Day

What are the qualities of a good day for you? I'm talking about an ordinary good day, not the birth of a child or getting promoted kind of good. What has to happen for you to go to bed with a smile on your face?
For me, good days almost always come after a good night's sleep. Although I can almost always fall asleep easily, I'm turning into one of those old people who can't seem to string together eight hours to save my life. Today, I managed to sleep until almost 4:30 AM, which is the latest I've been in bed all week.
Although the presence of coffee does not guarantee a good day, the absence of it almost assuredly means getting anything done will be extra challenging. Today, we had coffee, so there was no crisis. I also just ordered one more shipment of Barry's Tea before our Amazon Prime subscription expires in a couple of weeks. Somehow, I ended up with four boxes of this delectable nectar from the Emerald Isle. I switch over to drinking it mid-morning and continue to make a brew every couple of hours throughout the day.
I like being productive. These days, in retirement, I can pick out my projects. The primary one I'm working on now is organizing nearly 100,000 photos, a lifetime's worth from several generations. It gives me a unique opportunity to come up with new technical solutions while being submerged in the great memories old photos bring back. That's digital photos going back to the 90s, the quantity of which drastically increased when we got smartphones. It's also massive amounts of DSLR shots from a time when I spent many hours a week pointing and clicking at anything remotely interesting, including trips all over the country to take photos. Finally, there are scanned family snapshots going back decades for both my wife and me.
I like my solitude very much, but I also relish family time. One of our daughters and her husband are going to a concert tonight (Disturbed) and we agreed to watch their kids overnight. They live a couple of hours a way, but made the drive all the way here to drop off their offspring. I was prepared with plentiful snacks and drinks. As soon as their folks left, I proposed a trip to the old school arcade in town, to which they instantly agreed. We spent a couple of hours playing pinball, skee-ball and trying in vain to extract loot from claw machines. Nobody whined or complained. My granddaughter, age five, got a little teary when she failed to win a stuffed animal, but her heroic high school aged brother deftly cheered her up immediately by giving her all his tickets for her to redeem at the prize counter.
The evening was spent eating food I didn't have to cook in a house remarkably calm despite the presence of young people. The only loud noise was the kids laughing at each other. Wonder Woman went to bed early since she has to work tomorrow. In the morning I'm taking the kids out for pancakes at my favorite diner, which is right down the street. I'm eagerly awaiting another good day.
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Fascism is Here, Evidence Included

The Italian philosopher and novelist, who came of age in Mussolini's Italy, penned a list of the 14 characteristics of fascism, all of which are currently present in the United States.
- The cult of tradition. This is the belief that the truth is already known once and for all. Fascists believe there is no need to advance in learning.
- The rejection of modernism. Fascists reject the Enlightenment and its evidence-based rationality.
- The cult of action for action’s sake. Fascist leaders act impulsively, without thinking or planning ahead.
- No analytical criticism. Fascists ignore nuance and see any disagreement as treasonous.
- Fear of difference. Fascists fear diversity. Thus they are racist by definition.
- Appeal to a frustrated middle class. An economically frustrated and/or politically marginalized middle class is easy to stir to anger.
- Obsession with a plot. Because the followers must be made to feel besieged, an internal “enemy” is provided: Immigrants, Muslims, Hispanics, Blacks. (Historically the Jews were often made to be “the enemy.”)
- Anti-elitism. The followers are made to feel humiliated by the wealth and strength of the educated “elite.” This is used to create resentment.
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. Fascists believe that life is permanent warfare. Therefore a desire for peace is treasonous.
- Contempt for the weak. A fascist leader despises his underlings, who in turn despise those under them. They all either mock or ignore the poor, the sick, and the disabled.
- The cult of heroism. The Fascist is eager to die a hero’s death. In his impatience, he frequently sends other people to their deaths.
- Machismo. Fascists show disdain for women, disregard for chastity, and condemnation of homosexuality.
- Selective populism. Under fascism, the “voice of the people” is not the democratic majority, but only the voices of those who support the leader.
- Ur-fascism speaks Newspeak. Just as in Orwell’s 1984, Fascists use an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax to limit complex and critical reasoning.
Smart People Say We're There
The rise of end times fascism Far right (US) The Guardian - The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
American Fascism Then (1939) and Now (2025) Columnists insightnews.com - Historian Heather Cox Richardson reminds in a recent article that there was a time in American history when the Nazi Party, while still somewhat on the fringe, enjoyed a level of "normalization" in the run up to the start of World War II in 1939 that bears eery resemblance to the modern push for fascist extremism in the United States.
How the US Went Fascist Mass Media Make Excuses for Trump Voters – BillMoyers.com - Trump's racism and xenophobia violates America's core beliefs — yet the media and many Americans are okay with it.
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Safari Extensions Worth Paying For and A Couple of Worthy Freebies
One of my current strategies to minimize the ability of tech
companies, starting with Google, to use browser fingerprinting to
extract information from my browsing habits involves rotating among a
half dozen browsers on my Mac. Because I have long used Chromium-based
browsers and the extension ecosystem associated with them, I've had to
find some alternatives for Safari, which I am using as part of my
rotation. Unlike most Chrome and Firefox extensions, many Safari add-ons
incur a cost, usually small. These are the ones I opted to buy. I'm sure
some of the long-time Safari users out there have some suggestions for
alternatives or criticisms of some of these choices. You are welcome to
school me, I won't be offended. I also realize that watching ad-free
YouTube on Safari is a never-ending battle. I have alternative solutions
for that, primarily using FreeTube.
- Homecoming for Mastodon on the App Store - The $2.99 app redirects any Mastodon link back to my home instance so that I don't have to log in repeatedly when following links to people who use other servers.
- MarkDownload on the Mac App Store - This $2.99 app copies the URL of the current tab in Safari as a Markdown link. It can also copy the entire web page to your clipboard as Markdown or make a Markdown list of all the open tabs in your browser.
- Baking Soda - Tube Cleaner on the App Store - This $1.99 app is a Safari extension that replaces custom video players (except the YouTube player) with a minimal HTML video tag. It standardizes your video experience from site to site, including videos saved by collaborative meeting sites.
- Acidity - View Page Archives on the App Store - This free extension is the best paywall remover that I've found for Safari and it rivals anything I've ever used on other browsers.
- MousHero for Safari on the Mac App Store - This $1.99 extension, MousHero is a Safari extension that adds automation superpowers to your browsing experience: trigger URL actions by adding up to 3 custom context menu items to Safari's right-click menu. You'll be able to launch apps, services and automations (for instance with third-party applications such as Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Drafts, etc.), optionally passing the currently selected text, destination link, current page URL and title as parameters.
- Wipr 2 on the App Store - Since there is no uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger for Safari, I chose the highly regarded ad and tracker blogger from Indy developer, Kaylee Calerolla to handle those tasks for me - $4.99
- Hush Nag Blocker on the App Store - Browse the web like it should be – free of nags to accept cookies or privacy invasive tracking. It's tiny, fast, free, open, secure and without any access to your data.
- Vinegar - Tube Cleaner on the App Store - For $1.99, Vinegar is a Safari extension that replaces the YouTube player with a minimal HTML video tag. It removes ads, restores picture-in-picture, and keeps videos playing in the background.
- Stop the Madness Pro Extension for Safari, Chrome and Firefox AppAddict - Offers extensive customization on a site by site basis to combat data harvesting and dark practices by social media and other sites. $14.99
American Goldfinch
Do yourself a favor and purchase a couple of thistle seed socks because that’s all you need to attract Goldfinches like this to your yard if you live in the right place in North America. They are beautiful birds. #birds

Some App Finding Resources for You
It truly seems like there is an unending river of new Mac apps to check out. I once worried that I would not be able to find enough apps to continue writing about them daily. These days I wonder how I will ever find the time to download, test and review all the interesting software I discover. When it comes to discovery, I rely on tips from readers first and foremost. If an app is good enough for someone to take the time to tell me about it, it must be special. I also have a full complement of sites that I look at regularly to see what is popular, what has been updated and what’s just been released. Take a look.
AppAddict Source Websites
- MacUpdate Search - this is a bookmark to the recent releases of free apps
- Discover Software & User Reviews Tool Finder - a comprehensive site with YouTube videos, reviews, links and more
- Open Source Software, Open Source Alternatives, OSS Software - A decidedly technical site that I keep looking through for stuff easy enough for somebody like me to understand
- thriftmac - Over 400 quality totally free Mac apps
- Mr. Free Tools - The Best Free Tools & Resources - Not just software, but also web services
- Recently Added – MacMenuBar.com - One of the best software sites in the Mac ecosystem, run by luuk, a friend of AppAddict
- Apps - MacSources - Comprehensive reviews
- Today on Mac - More good reviews
- Top Mac Apps - Top 1000 Apps - the website of the MacUpdater App
- Premium macOS apps gone free or on discount - Score the occasional free App Store gift code here
- Best Privacy Tools & Software Guide in in 2025 - Has been an big help to me in securing my data and ensuring my privacy
- GitHub - Axoraxawesome-free-apps Curated list of the best free apps for PC and mobile - A long, long list of apps to investigate
A Preview of the Pipeline
These are individual apps and services that I've bookmarked to download and test for possible reviews on App Addict. If you are fond of any of these, please let me know why you like it. Also, if you've tried any of these and found them lacking, give me a heads-up on that too.
This Week's Bookmarks - Anti-Fascist Films, Ancient Graffiti, White House Rumors, 1995 and The Web, Best Browsers, Middle-Class Income Needs, Apple and Developers

The 40 Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time - In light of recent events, it might be a good time to remember a very simple truth: Nazis are ALWAYS the bad guys.
A Tour of Ancient Rome's Best Graffiti: "We Have Urinated in Our Beds ... There Was No Chamber Pot & More| Open Culture - Apart from the likes of bravo and pizza, graffiti must be one of the first Italian words that English-speakers learn in everyday life. As for why the English word comes directly from the Italian, perhaps it has something to do with the history of writing on the walls — a history that, in Western civilization, stretches at least as far back as the time of the Roman Empire.
10 rumors involving Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt So, the question is, does she spread more rumors from the White House podium than are spread about her because of her wackadoodle behavior and inexperience.
1995 Was the Most Important Year for the Web - The History of the Web - 1995 is a fascinating year. It's one of the most turbulent in modern history. 1995 was the web's single most important inflection point. A fact that becomes most apparent by simply looking at the numbers. At the end of 1994, there were around 2,500 web servers. 12 months later, there were almost 75,000. By the end of 1995, over 700 new servers were being added to the web every single day.
These Are the 7 Best Browsers That Aren't Google Chrome - STOP USING CHROME!! Chrome was once a great browser, but it's known to be slower, battery-draining, a memory hog, and collects massive amounts of user data. If you want something better than Chrome, you don't have to pick one. Each option excels in certain situations; you should try them to find what best suits your needs without much compromise.
The Income Needed to be Middle Class in Every U.S. State (2025) - Middle class is defined as earning between two-thirds and twice the median household income.
The Dark Side of Apple Development: Why Developers Are Struggling On Apple’s Increasingly Hostile Platforms – Magic Lasso Adblock = "They would rather have a ChatGPT or TikTok than an OmniFocus or Magic Lasso. Apple is too big to fail, which means it's too big to care." - Ian Betterridge
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White-breasted Nuthatch
These little nuthatches are easy to spot because of their habit of descending trees headfirst, like the one in the photo. 
Downy Woodpecker
The Downy Woodpecker is the smallest woodpecker in North America. They are easy to attract with inexpensive suet feeders like the one in the photo. #birds
PhotoSync to take Control Over Your Images
For anyone who wants to eliminate as much friction as possible in
creating backups of their iPhone photos outside of iCloud, most people
have long turned to apps from big tech companies like Google, Amazon,
and Dropbox. They all have apps that will gladly upload your photos on
to their servers, where you can be assured they will extract every bit
of data about you that they legally (hopefully) help themselves to.
Using the paid iOS app, PhotoSync, you get the ability to wirelessly and automatically send copies of your photos to the file system of your computer, a long list of commercial cloud services, plus my choice, custom WebDAV servers. I store my photos on non-US systems with strong encryption because privacy matters.
PhotoSync has various options to name and organize your exported photos. You can also have multiple options for formats: raw +JPG, HEIC, JPG and various choices for handling Live Photos and videos. You can include or exclude metadata, including GPS locations. Additionally, you can export both the edited and original versions of a photo or just one of those choices.
If you want to get photos from your phone to your Mac, where you can edit them, decide on what you would like to archive and create a name and folder structure to your liking, there is a free macOS companion app that facilitates that. It also lets you move photos from your computer to your phone without using Apple Photos.
The Photosync iOS app has various pricing models, both subscription and lifetime purchase options, the latter running $24.99 for the premium version which adds extra features:
- In-app camera for instant transfer
- Client-side encryption
- Backblaze, Amazon S3 and Wasabi support
- Advanced Siri Support and shortcuts
- Downloads from DSLRs right to your phone
- Upcoming feature to organize your iOS library on your Mac
Photosync has been in the App Store for 14 years, and I have used
it off and on for most of that time. With my current focus on protecting
my data from big tech companies, I will be using it more and more.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
Horses

One of the joys about being a prolific reader is the opportunity to become fascinated and informed about all kinds of things that are totally outside your lived experience. In the 70s, as a fifth grader, I read the book The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. This led to an immediate and long-lasting fascination with horses, even though I've never seen thoroughbreds race and have only ridden about a dozen times. Actually, as a pre-school child in a time before I have clear memories, my mother bought me a book about horse breeds which I promptly memorized. I think my parents used me as a party trick to show off that particular skill.
The 70s were a good time to be interested in horses and racing. Secretariat had won the Triple Crown in 1973 in a fashion so dominating that it may never be matched. He won the final race, the Belmont Stakes, by an unimaginable 50 lengths. He was the first to win all three races in 25 years. Many sportswriters went so far as to name Secretariat as one of the 20th century top athletes. Then in 1977 and 1978 there were Triple Crown Winners in back to back years for the only time ever. The person who rode Affirmed to victory in 1978 was a teenager, Steve Cauthen, who became the only jockey ever named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the year.
I asked for and received figurines of famous horses for Christmas. I read every book the library had about them. I was especially interested in thoroughbreds, but anything horse related was worth investigating. I studied my grandfather's collection of World Almanacs for the lists of names of the horses who had one the famous US races. I knew as much about Man O' War, the legendary horse from the early 20th century, as I did about Babe Ruth, the ultimate star of my other favorite sport, baseball.
Although I did not get to see them until I was an adult, I read all the books I could find about the feral horses of the islands on the eastern seaboard, including, most famously, Misty of Chincoteague. I am always happy to see the horses on Ocracoke Island and other coastal areas of North Carolina where I visit. I was pleasantly surprised when the book, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand became a bestseller and read it eagerly. by One of the highlights of my Appalachian Trail thru-hike was the day we hiked Grayson Highlands state park in Virginia where a delightful band of feral horses greets lucky hikers. I've been back there several times to see them.
These days, I'm lucky to have a granddaughter who has several years of experience riding and competing in horse shows, including dressage and jumping as well as cross-country. She's worked hard to develop her skills and recently got promoted from the junior level to the senior level of competition. She rides an American Quarter Horse named Say Pepsi Please, who she is naturally very fond of.
Unfortunately, the so-called sport of kings that sparked my interest in the whole scene has been ruined (like baseball and professional cycling) by rampant use of performing enhancing drugs, resulting in an epidemic of death among the equine athletes. Attendance at famous tracks has declined sharply, and the allure and mystique of the entire scene no longer interests me. Like most Americans, I only pay attention to the Triple Crown races, and then only superficially.
Still, I love an opportunity to watch or spend time with horses, even if it's just an old mare eating grass in a pasture. It is good to have things you enjoy, don't you think?
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The Roth Memory Course
Have you ever seen or read about the people who can memorize the exact order of multiple decks of cards? Those people are freaks and they scare me, so I'm not advocating those kinds of skills, but who wouldn't like to be able to retain information more easily? Several years ago I came upon a free PDF version of The Roth Memory Course by David M. Roth, first published in 1918. Written in the stilted and formal British English of the era, Roth presents seven lessons and techniques to memorize more information than you ever though possible, using methods you could teach to a child. I read the book and learned the techniques and, while I kept my skill sharp, could easily recite lists of 100 random words in order. That's a neat party trick, but not very useful otherwise. The practical use was learning dozens of technical acronyms and terms while studying for IT exams.
It's an easy read and a fun self study exercise. If you look around, you can find the PDF version, although hardcover and kindle versions also exist.
Roth Memory Course A Simple And Scientific Method Of Improving The Memory And Increasing Mental Power by David M. Roth
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Digikam is Replacing Apple Photos, Google Photos and Amazon Photos For Me
Apple Photos is fine for backing up the pictures I take with my
iPhone, but its proprietary database that keeps users from accessing
their files except through the software is for the birds. A corrupt
photos library can cut you off from all your memories. I long used
Google Photos and Amazon Photos as secondary backups of not only my
iPhone photos, but also scans and the pictures I take with my DSLR.
Since I decided to stop doing business with big tech to the extent
possible (except Apple), I downloaded my collections from both
companies, consolidated them, removed the duplicates and began looking
for a management solution that has the features I want. After much
testing, I've decided to go with the free and open-source solution, Digikam It has been around for years
but is under active development. Version 8.6 was just released in March
2025.
Digikam easily loads my photo library, which contains nearly 100,000 images and over 420 albums, which are primarily collections of images from every month of this century. I can view my images as they appear in the file system, or group them according to tags, labels, geolocation or other metadata. Digikam eliminates the need for certain types of image utilities such as EXIF editors and duplicate photo finders because the functionality is built in.
It has robust export capabilities to photo management sites like Flickr, SmugMug, Google Photos and more. You can also send your collection to all the major US cloud storage companies like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and more. You can also send images to social media sites as well. I wish it had WebDAV support, since I am using European cloud servers now.
Digikam makes it easy to for whatever your photo related workflow needs happen to be. If you are a photographer who needs to import an SD card from a day of shooting at an event, it can handle imports with batch edits and data processing using the same techniques as Lightroom. If you are someone like me with a large collection of digital images you want to curate, it has all the organizational tools you can think of. If you just want to have a nice way to look at your images, it has an easy-to-access slide show feature and the ability to scan and display any combination of folders or albums you select.
There are a couple of drawbacks. It's a huge program, weighing in at around 1 GB, mostly because it is packed with so many open sourced editing tools. My photos are in a folder that I sync between two computers, but I can't use a version of Digikam on more than one device because the path to the folder that holds my images is different since one is a Mac and the other is a Linux box. The facial recognition is good, but it's not as good as what Google Photos has which is so accurate it scares me. I'm glad I removed my data from their clutches.
I'll Take Lots of Little Pleasures over A Few Big Ones

For as long as I have been married to Wonder Woman, our specialty has been the weekend getaway. From our base of operations in southeastern North Carolina, we are just a few hours away from the coast and the mountains. We can easily drive to one of several metro areas, national forests, state parks or festivals. Some of our favorite places where we've stayed many times are one-room rental cabins in the Uwharrie National Forest, camp sites at Jones Lake State Park, cottages in Damascus, VA, and a hotel with suites near Umstead State Park in the Triangle area of NC. Over the years we've taken various airplane trips too, to NYC, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, the Bay Area of CA and Northern Ireland among others. Those big trips are fun but exhausting. I like the little ones, where I can just relax and be comfortable in surroundings that have grown to be comfortable.
When it comes to food and fine dining, I'll admit that a nice meal in a fancy restaurant can be enjoyable, but more often I would prefer to get some street tacos from a trailer on the roadside. There is a lot to be said for a good frozen pizza when I don't feel like cooking. As summer approaches, the time for a simple tomato sandwich with mayo draws near. The older I get, the less willing I am to spend an hour chopping ingredients into smaller bits and dirtying up multiple sets of measuring spoons and cups, If a meal takes longer than 15 minutes to prep, cooking stops being fun and becomes more like a chore.
In my drinking days, I tried 20-year-old single malts and expensive French red wine, but honestly, I was just chasing a feeling, not a taste. All that money was wasted. Few things in life taste as good as an ice-cold Coke when I am really thirsty. I played high school football in the bad old days, when the coaches thought that depriving you of water for three hours in hot August sunshine built character. The intense thirst we'd build up during those practices was one of the most miserable feelings I ever had. I've run out of water while hiking too when an expected source for refilling my bottles turned out to be dry. The relief at finally finding a small trickle of a spring just before sunset is something I still remember years later.
Occasionally, the best part of a day is simply taking my shoes off when I get home and sitting down on the couch for a minute, with no one asking me questions or expecting me to do anything. Although I have an outgoing personality and can make conversation with anyone, I also have the introvert's desire for quiet time at home to recharge my batteries. I like people, I do, but I also like my own company and the chance to start or finish a personal project that is important to no one but me is something I treasure more than an invitation to the coolest party.
One of the best feelings in the world is the privilege of going to sleep when I want to. My love for a nap is second only to my love for my family. Being able to sleep anywhere, anytime is my superpower and the only lifelong skill I learned in the military. I worked a third shift job for two long years in the 80s. It was horrible, staying up all night and trying to sleep during the daytime in a house where other people were living normal lives. I wasn't smart enough then to put up blackout curtains or to use an eye mask or earplugs or a white noise fan. Nope, I just crawled into bed in a brightly lit room and counted on nothing more than fatigue to make me rest. Never again.
I don't get any more of a buzz buying something expensive than I do when I get a ninety-nine cent app for my phone that does something unique. Yes, the one every four years or so purchase of a new computer is cool, but I've had just as much fun over the past few moths tinkering with two machines I built from spare parts out of the trash at work.
Day to day comfort is what I crave and what I have. I don't get bored easily, and I appreciate the little things because in the end, they are what truly matter.
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Stop the Madness Pro Extension for Safari, Chrome and Firefox
To preserve more of my privacy, I am now using different browsers
on a rotating basis. This helps to cut down on fingerprinting to an
extent. I am used to customizing my browsers extensively so it's been an
ongoing project to get extensions installed, DNS over https set up,
changing default download behaviors, testing ad blocking and more. I
have not regularly used Safari for many years, even on iOS, so it's
taken some getting used to. There isn't 100% overlap between what's
available for Mozilla and Chromium browsers and Safari. Additionally,
many popular Safari extensions cost money, much more so than on other
browsing platforms.
One extension that I got today is one that I've been looking at for a long time, but never tried is StopTheMadness Pro, by Jeff Johnson of Underpass App Company because a universal license is $14.99 and that's a little much for something I wasn't going to use frequently. But, times change, and today I installed it and started configuring the many, many options. I immediately found out that since the last time I looked at it, the developer has released extensions for Chrome and Firefox. There is one primary reason for installing this extension., social media and marketing web developers use all sorts of underhanded techniques, and that's part of the madness this app lets you combat.
The extension has gotten a lot of praise in the tech press from noted journalists like John Gruber of Daring Fireball:, Federico Viticci of AppStories/MacStories, and Glenn Fleishman of Macworld.
Have you ever noticed that when you visit certain websites, the contextual menu (Control/right-click) gets disabled? And other things change too. You can’t copy and paste elements on the page. You keep typing in a field, but extra characters aren’t recognized, and you don’t even get a warning. Likewise, you can’t select text or drag an image from a page to the Finder. And when you try to close a tab, you have to click a Safari warning to proceed. Autocomplete and autofill don’t work or mess up. You can check out the StopTheMadness’ demo page without the extension installed to see these restrictions in action.
The extension has more features than I can fit in a single review. It supplements rather than replaces your current ad and tracker blocking. It doesn't have GreaseMonkey's full set of tools for user scripts, but the ones it does have are useful. Furthermore, it can hide page elements and let you use custom CSS on any site.
The pro version that was released last year added:
- Universal Purchase in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
- Automatic iCloud sync of StopTheMadness Pro settings between all of your devices
- Platform-specific settings, so you can have different settings on iPhone, iPad, or Mac while still using iCloud sync
- Presets: Easily assign the same specific website options to multiple websites
- Customize the list of query tracking parameters automatically removed from URLs, including URL domain-specific removal
- Hide Page Elements: New global list separate from the custom CSS option, so you can hide web page elements without creating new website options
- Contextual menu item to Hide Page Elements (macOS)
- Stop websites from overwriting your system clipboard
- Set custom cookies on websites
- Stop web animations
- Tab Rules enhance and replace New Tab Behavior
- Hide "We'd like to send you some notifications" banners on many websites (macOS)
- Automatically toggle off the YouTube autoplay button
- Temporarily disable the extension just on the current page
- Import and export settings files with the Files app (iOS)
Subscriptions Update With Some Savings

For some reason, those of us who live on the Internet have a fascination with the subscriptions other people are paying for. I'm happy to share mine with the world. Maybe you can find some interesting services or apps in my collection. My total costs are down about $40 a month since I last updated in October.
To see the entire list, go here.
What I eliminated
- Google One - Saved $10 a month (technically, I still have access to Google Drive through my cell phone plan, I'm just not storing anything there any more. I do use Gemini, Google's AI to help me with scripts)
- Hulu - Saved $18.99 a month
- Overcast - Saved $14.99 a year. I just don't listen to podcasts any more.
- Setapp - Saved $12 a month. I still use Setapp, but I no longer have to pay for it since accepting their offer to be ab affiliate.
- Amazon Prime - Saved $139 a year - because screw Jeff Bezos, that's why. I also canceled the Washington Post and Audible.
What I added
- Fastmail - Cost $96 a year for Two users. Since I no longer give the world's largest data extraction company access to my email, I had to find a place to host it, I'm happy with Fastmail so far.
- kDrive - Coast $7.24 a month. Since I no longer have access to Google Photos or Amazon Photos, I need a cloud solution and this Swiss company's 3 TB plan is the best bargain I could find that had good reviews and satisfied customers.
- Medium -Cost $4.99 a month I have a friend who started a Medium blog, and I wanted him to be able to see that I subscribed, so no more paywall avoidance for me.
New App Subscriptions
- Cheatsheet - I wanted this app forever. I love having short notes on my watch ($5.99/yr)
- Quick Reviews - How could I not support Matt Birchler? ($9.99/yr)
- Quotify - Ongoing search for a good quotes app ($.99a month)
- Quotz - see above ($2.99/yr)
- Reeder - I'm testing out all the timeline apps ($1/month)
- Skeetz for Bluesky- So much better than the standard app ($1.99/mo)
- Tapestry - another timeline app ($1.99/mo)
Backyard Bribery Results
Some days I just lay out a buffet on the railing of my deck and sit back with me camera to take pictures of all the freeloaders. Note, this particular squirrel is so lazy that he lays down to eat.



Admiration Society

Joe Hill, Labor Organizer, Murdered by the state at the behest of mine owners
I've always enjoyed reading a good biography. Taking a deep dive into the life of an interesting person is a fun way to learn, not only about them, but also about the times they lived in. Aside from books, just picking up facts about various people is a natural inclination for me. I'm blessed with the ability to remember facts, which makes me good at Trivial Pursuit and impressing myself while watching Jeopardy, if nothing else. Occasionally, when I discover a particularly admirable person, I feel cheated for having lived so long without having had the opportunity to know about them previously.
I can be picky about the people I let into my admiration society. Take Steve Jobs, for example. His decisions and leadership at Apple went a long way in providing me with a career I enjoyed immensely, and also a continuing fascination with technology. The problem is that he was a stingy man who was cruel to his daughter and a real asshole to many other people. He doesn't make my list. I'm not 100% consistent, though. John Lennon wasn't the greatest dad to his firstborn son, Julian. He was also a jerk to Julian's mother. Still, his devotion to his family later in life, his absolute genius and his honesty override all that.
One of the people it took me too long to discover was Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the giants of the civil rights movement. A tiny woman from Mississippi, she uttered a phrase that captures my life's philosophy perfectly, "Nobody is free until everybody is free." She was famously courageous, organizing voting drives during the days when the KKK routinely killed activists. She was outspoken and effective, so much so that Lyndon Johnson was held an emergency press conference to try to upstage her during the 1964 Democratic Convention.
When Bruce Springsteen released his live album in 1986, he included the song by Woodie Guthrie that everyone knows, This Land is My Land. While introducing the song, The Boss mentions a book, Woodie Guthrie, A Life by Joe Klein. I bought that book and read it. In my estimation, Woodie Guthrie was one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Not only did he influence Bob Dylan and the whole mob of folk singers who came after him, he also did a lot to inspire other artists to take the kind of political stands I admire. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he grew up with the racial attitudes of the day, but later in life, outgrew that and developed a more nuanced and thoughtful outlook on race, becoming friend with and an advocate for Leadbelly, among others.
Hugh Thompson was an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, like my father. On the day when a company of infantrymen from the Americal Division were systematically murdering hundreds of elderly men, women, and children in the hamlet of My Lai, Thompson landed his aircraft outside the village and ordered his door gunner to open fire on the next American he saw murdering civilians. He got out of the helicopter and tried to reason with the rampaging soldiers, eventually saving several lives by evacuating villagers before they could be killed. He later testified against the accused killers at their courts-martial.
My grandmother's brother, Gratton McFadyen, died a hero fighting the Nazis in Italy during World War Two. Although his military specialty was technical and not in combat arms, on the day he died he joined the fighting against the Germans anyway. He was awarded the Silver Star posthumously for his actions.
Harper Lee lived and wrote in Alabama during the years when the Klan was killing schoolchildren in church. She had the courage and the skill to write a novel that the MAGA movement shamefully is banning from schools, To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a white lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The book shaped my own racial attitudes at a young age. I'm forever grateful that my mother insisted that I read it.
There are a great many more people on my list, Joe Hill, Howard Zinn, Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, the Freedom Riders, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, St. Augustine, Oskar Schindler, Pete Seeger, Alan Turing, Jackie Robinson, Barak Obama, the Suffragettes, FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Grandma Gatewood and so many more.
Who is on your list?
One For the Techies - SwiftDefaultApps
The problem of the day for me was finding an extension for Safari
to automate opening paywalled websites at the Internet Archive.
Unfortunately, the only extension in the App Store that does that is not
available in the US. So, I turned to my go-to site for Apple Shortcuts,
Routine Hub, to look for a solution
there. I wasn't surprised to find one immediately.
I downloaded it and set it up to work with Carlo Zottman's new app, Barcuts, which replaces the default menu bar for Shortcuts with one that is application-specific.
I ran the shortcut on a paywalled article from the New York Times...and nothing happened. So, I went to the Shortcuts app to watch it run step by step to see where it was failing. It turns out that the URL scheme it was using was somehow not associated with Safari on my machine. I had no idea how to fix that, so I went to ChatGPT for help. It suggested an obscure free app from GitHub called SwiftDefaultApps. I was mildly skeptical because it hasn't been updated since 2019, but I tried to anyway. It has 1500 stars. Just a note - it installs in System Settings rather than into the /Applications folder.
There was no URL scheme listed for the one that was failing in the shortcut, but the app let me create it and associate it with Safari, figuring out how to do that was simple and intuitive. I tested the Shortcut again on the same article and it worked the very first time.
SwiftDefaultApps also lets you see every file association on your Mac and change them. You can also change your default apps for:
- Web browsing
- FTP
- RSS
- Instant messaging
You can also change the apps associated with Uniform Type Identifiers.
Based on its effectiveness in solving my particular problem and the variety of features it offers, I'm going to leave it installed. If you are one of those folks who gets the vapors over software that wasn't updated last week, it probably isn't for you.
Whitetop Mountain
I’ve climbed this mountain. Whitetop, many times. The first was on my through hike where a band of old hippies gave me and Wonder Woman giant plates of food and laughed at us as we inhaled it while moaning in delight. Washington County, Virginia in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. Trump is going to let loggers cut the trees down.


Belief Makes it Real, or Does It?

During my working life, my boss in the school IT system, bless his heart, had to counsel me numerous times because I just didn't grasp the concept that different people have different realities. I was a pretty rigid thinker about most things. I'm a big guy with a deep voice, and in those days, I tended to appear pretty serious about most things. First year kindergarten teachers, who, let's face it, have a lot more important things to worry about than how to connect a vintage white iBook to a first generation Smart Board, found me intimidating. They wanted someone to show them, again, how to hook up their laptops, but they were afraid to ask me.
I was pretty offended by this. I took pride in being professional and thorough. I didn't mind going the extra mile to help out my customers. When I told the boss, he assured me that he knew my heart was in the right place, but that (here it comes), "People's perception is their reality." He probably told me that once or twice a week for a decade. It doesn't matter if you're Mother Teresa. If people think you're Margaret Thatcher, they aren't going to want you in their space.
Eventually, I adopted an attitude where my primary concern was making people feel comfortable first, and then solving their tech issues. Any technically competent person can figure out why your machine won't connect to the Internet. Evidently, it takes experiences to turn off airplane mode for you without making you feel stupid. I've probably closed 100 tickets in my life where a person's issue was caused by their computer being unplugged. I never put that in the ticket, though. I always just put "electrical problems." That way they don't feel dumb and no one but me and them know they had to get help for the most basic of issues.
I had to adopt that attitude at work to be successful. I don't have to adopt it in the real world, nor should I. Nor should you. Racists live in a world where their reality is founded in the belief that other racial groups are inferior. That most certainly doesn't make it real. Right-wing Christians think that Jesus loves them although they don't help the poor and immigrants, don't turn the other cheek and most importantly don't treat other people like they want to be treated. I don't have to respect their faith or give them credit for tithing to their all white church that lobbies to take away a woman's right to choose. Finally, I don't have to respect a person's belief that their sexuality gives them more rights than my LGBT friends. I have the right to my own reality, in which people with that attitude are hateful bigots.
I know I am not the arbiter of anyone's reality but my own. I have some odd beliefs, mostly about inconsequential stuff. Although I've consumed copious amounts of coffee, tea, liquor and beer, I don't believe that any of it tastes good without being sweetened. Me and every other person who is a fan of those beverages enjoys them for the drugs they contain, caffeine and ethyl alcohol. If you drink decaf coffee without cream and sugar, you have a mental illness verging on masochism. Hey, like I said, that's my reality. It doesn't have to be yours.
Even our own memories challenge what is real and what is not. When my siblings and I sit down with our Mom to tell stories from the good old days, we frequently have completely unique recollections of when and how things went down in the early 70s. Occasionally the differences are pretty big. We remember things happening in entirely different towns or with different people. Obviously, we aren't living in parallel universes. There is one "real" version of events. It's just that none of us is sure after five decades what the real version is.
Overall, it doesn't matter, I suppose. We have to be true to our ideals. The willingness to be a better person should never leave us, but failing to hold people accountable for bullshit is not an attribute. Remember what St. Augustine said. "Love and do as you will."
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Delimited - Quick and Easy Way to Work with CSV Files
In trying to stay away from proprietary formats, like spreadsheets
from Excel or even Numbers, I opt for using comma separated value (CSV)
files as often as possible. These files are simply plain text that can
be edited and viewed with anything capable of reading plain text. They
will never be obsolete as long as computers are in use. Text editors
aren't the best tool for working with data in table formats, however.
It's difficult to copy, cut and paste columns and rows of data.
Delimited, a CSV editor that adheres to the RFC 4180 standard, by developer Willem Kempers, is a bargain for $3.99 in the Mac App Store. In adherence to the standard, it can also word tab separated values (TSV) as well. You can treat the first row as data or a header. You can add columns and rows and move data by cutting and copying at will. The developer states that it can handle datasets as large as two million rows without choking. The app is written in 100% Swift and follows typical Mac standards. You can customize the toolbar. On all of my Macs, it is the default handler of CSV files.
Delimited is also capable of creating files from scratch, not just editing existing ones. You can get more information at the developer's website.
I Have So Many Questions
OK, what is going on here? Isn’t everyone aging all the time? Are the services getting older or am I? Ans, what’s up with the decrepit building? #Confused
NYC Street Scene
The rear end of The Charging Bull statue in the financial district in New York City. It’s theonly bull the market is going to see for a long time now that the fascists have killed the economy.
Interstate 95

If you do much traveling along the East Coast of the United States, it is hard to escape doing some driving on Interstate 95. It runs from the Canadian border with Maine to Miami, a distance of 1924 miles, passing through 15 states and the District of Columbia, more than any other Interstate. The final leg of I-95 wasn't connected until 2018 in New Jersey. 110 million people live in proximity to the highway and it facilitates 40% of the US gross domestic product.
I live about five miles from the closest exit. I'm most familiar with the stretch between central Florida and Washington, DC, although I have traveled as far north as New Jersey on it on a single trip in the 80s. I've also been on short stretches in Maine and the Miami metro area.
If you plan to make your way down it at any point, I suggest getting the excellent iOS app, iExit, which tracks your location and gives you information on all the amenities you need while traveling.
For planning purposes, there is an entire website dedicated to traveling the highway.
I-95 Exit Guide | #1 Road Trip & Planning Guide - This comprehensive website offers information on:
- Real time traffic conditions
- Tolls
- Alternate routes
- Gas prices
- Hotel booking
- Restaurant recommendations
- Construction
- Weather
- Shopping (outlet mallls)
As always, you can take a deep dive on Wikipedia.
A New World of Automation Possibilities
One of the most frustrating situations for me when traveling is being locked out of remote access into my home computer. If my remote access software has some sort of glitch or my whole workstation needs to be restarted, short of calling someone to go to my house and sit at my desk, I have been out of luck. Thanks to a post I saw on Reddit yesterday, those days are behind me now. Using some tools I already have, it is now possible to do any number of remote actions to my remote computer from my phone, traveling laptop or a borrowed computer.
In my use case, the tools I am employing are:
Step One - Dropbox
Create an empty folder in Dropbox. I called mine "Actions".
Step Two - Hazel
On your home computer, create rules in Hazel that are triggered by a) full name b) matches c) FileName.txt
Then set an action telling Hazel to rename the file so that it doesn't go into a loop.
Finally, set an action that runs an AppleScript or an Apple Shortcut to complete the task you want. ChatGPT can write the AppleScript for you if you just describe what you want to do.
Step 3 - Shortcuts (optional)
You can make shortcuts that will automatically create the files you want in your Actions folder and run them from your iPhone if you want to fully automate the process.
When you are away and you want to perform one of the actions you have
set up, all you have to do is create an empty text file in your Actions
folder with the name that corresponds to the action. For example, if I
create a file called restart.txt, it triggers Hazel to run an
AppleScript to reboot my machine.
Ideas
A few of the things you can do remotely are
- Restart your computer
- Log out the current user
- Start any app
- Move or copy files from a non-synced location to a cloud drive
Riding the New River Trail
Wonder Woman enjoying a ride beside the New River in a linear state park in SW Virginia.
Hop to Desk, a Free and Open-Source Encrypted Remote Access Solution
I have been using Chrome Remote Desktop when I need to remote into
computers in my home when I am away. It's free, requires practically no
setup beyond installation, adding a computer names and setting up a
password. It works through corporate firewalls and local VPNs with no
trouble. The only problem is the compnay who makes it. I am opting out
of Google products for email, cloud storage, search, photos, browsing
and maps. There is no reasons to use their remote solution when others
are available.
The solution I found is the free and open-source Hop To Desk product. It has all the benefits og Chrome Remote Desktop and more.
Features
- Chat
- File transfer
- Works on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android and ChromeOS
- Can be run from a thumb drive as a portable app
- End to end encryption
- Share screen with remote user or exercise remote control
- Direct IP access, IP whitelisting and SOCKS5 proxy connections are supported
- Does not require network configuration like port forwarding or firewall adjustments
- Connect to unlimited remote computers (Commercial use is OK)
- You may setup your own private HopToDesk network on your servers or existing infrastructure. Self-hosting can also be accomplished with AWS or Cloudflare Workers.
- Use optional web-based dashboard to manage connections and generate share links
I was able to set up my home network of Mac, iOS and Linux devices in about 15 minutes. The macOS version requires screen recording and accessibility permissions.
Remembering Poor Me

Getting a state job in 1986 ended a few of the common problems I'd experienced as a member of the Working Poor™️. The biggest one was finally having health insurance. Except for military doctors, I hadn't gotten health care since I was a teenager. My birth of my two children, like roughly half the kids in the US, was paid for by Medicaid. After that ran out, we were on our own. I also became eligible for paid sick and vacation leave, an absolute luxury. Few hourly jobs in my region offered such benefits, at least among those who worked in the trades. If rain or snow canceled a day's work, a day's pay was also canceled.
One thing working for the state didn't alleviate was low wages. In 1986 as a married man with two children, I barely made $15K. There's a long list of issues that come with not making much money. Not being able to save meant that any unexpected expense had the potential to become a catastrophe. For years, I owned a succession of high-mileage, low-end, thousand-dollar cars. Any attempt at taking a long trip was always a gamble. I owned cars where the windows wouldn't work and a car that burned two quarts of oil every day. I was well into my thirties before I ever bought four new tires at one time. I bought a great many used ones for $25 apiece, though.
These days, I like to look back on my decision not to have cable television during my kid's formative years as a moral choice to keep their minds from becoming polluted, but the reality is, I just could not afford it. I was more fortunate than many, since my mom had herself graduated from Working Poor™️ status into the professional ranks. An extreme generous soul, she bought lots of school clothes and shoes for my kids through the years.
Even after a miracle happened, and we were able to get a mortgage on a home, I quickly learned about the challenges that posed when my water heater died. There was no landlord to call to get it fixed. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of timely computer-side jobs to pay for a replacement, or else we'd have all been taking cold showers for a while. I'm not too proud to admit that I even had to borrow money from my high school-aged son, who worked a fast food job until the next payday when our refrigerator died unexpectedly.
I finally escaped that cycle through longevity and promotions at work. Of course, marrying Wonder Woman who makes pretty good dough, was also a big factor. She's a CPA, and ever since we got married I've just turned my paycheck over to her, and like magic, the bills get paid, my debit card never gets rejected and the holidays aren't a ball of financial stress. It's magic, I tell you.
My personal experience informs my feelings for the people who are still members of the Working Poortm™️. I saw the teacher's assistants, custodians, and cafeteria workers from my public school paying the same amount for their family health insurance as the highest compensated administrators. I've been to plenty of restaurants in the summer where my waitress was a schoolteacher working a second job. I've had the same experience at the grocery store, watching a high school business teacher ring up my groceries. I've seen the legislature go years without raising teacher pay, cutting benefits, and taking away paid incentives for graduate degrees. All this happens because we have a state law forbidding collective bargaining for public employees.
You'll notice that I haven't even touched on the criminal refusal of the ruling class to raise the wages of our lowest paid workers at the same time they created the economic system that foisted Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on us.
No warfare but class warfare. Workers of the world, unite.
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Exploring Journaling Techniques

I've been keeping a journal of some sort consistently for many years. My motivations aren't that complex. I like journaling because it gives me something to do. To me, the act of organizing and recording my thoughts is just an enjoyable activity in its own right. I also enjoy looking back at past entries quite a bit. It's fun to see what I did on trips with Wonder Woman in years past or to see photos from family get togethers. Since I started blogging, much of what I once wrote just for myself now gets shared with the Internet.
Here are a few tips based on my experience and some links from others to help you get started:
- You can keep a digital and a handwritten journal at the same time. There are proven benefits from writing things out by hand to reinforce them in your brain. Get a box of nice pens and a stack of composition books and put them somewhere easy to find. Make some goals and write about them each morning while you have your coffee. I did this daily during the most productive year I ever had
- Use Day One - a journaling app available on many platforms. It is one of the most well designed and useful apps I have ever encountered. Since January 2014, I've used it lmost every day. Day One Is Popular for a Reason | AppAddict
- Use Obsidian - Obsidian is an extensible app with over 2000 available plugins. If you are a data junkie like me, You can automate all kinds of data into it's daily note feature. My Daily Note in Obsidian - Byte Sized Chunks for Customizing Every Element, Plugin Recommendations and Links
- Discover 8 Journaling Techniques for Better Mental Health | Psychology Today - Ever wondered how you should journal? Learn eight ways that you can use journaling to reduce stress, increase self-reflection, and create a better sense of wellbeing.
- 10 Types of Journaling for Peace of Mind | Skillshare Blog - Journaling can be a powerful tool for self-care, but it also can be tough to sit down and write about your thoughts. The good news? There are so many ways you can put pen to paper. So, if you’ve ever thought that it just isn’t your thing, read on to learn about the different types of journaling to see if one speaks to you. (Or, if you’re already an avid journaler, see if there’s a new tool you can add to your practice!)
- How to Journal: 5 Pro Tips and 40 Prompts to Get You Started - Remember, journaling is supposed to benefit you. Don’t stick with a method because others you know enjoy that approach or because you feel like you “should.”
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5 Small Gems I Found This Week
Here are a few small apps I found this week from my usual sources and tips from Internet friends:
Sentinel - from indy dev, Alin Lupascu, the guy behind the popular uninstall utility, Pearcleaner, Sentinel has a couple of Gatekeeper related functions:
- Removes app from quarantine
- Self-signs apps
iCloud for Linux- If you occasionally use Linux, perhaps to get some life from an older Mac or just as a learning experience, and you want to access your iCloud data - well there in an app for that.
Substage - This app uses AI to generate command line commands to do things like convert documents, images and videos, get word counts in your current document, move and compress files, perform commits and pushes on GitHub, do calculations and more. It has a two week free trial, then subscription or lifetime purchase options using various commercial or local LLMs.
The SeaMonkey Project - If you are an old who remembers the days when Firefox came as an all in one application suite, with a browser, email, chat and web creation tools, you may be pleasently surprised that the concept lives on in this project. I created my first websites back in the 90s using this kind of suite.
Macs Fan Control - I have a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro used as a server in my living room and it occasionally drives me nuts with fan noise issues caused by my decision to replace the HDD. This app lets me create presets and control the fans as I like. There is a free and a pro version costing $14.95.
This Weeks's Bookmarks - Monetized Spirituality, Victims of AI, No Brave Browser, iPhone Settings, Bad Accessories, Trump Tariff Formula, Goodbye to Democracy in NC

Celebrities are monetizing spirituality with the most popular app on the iPhone - Hallow - The thing about meditation is that it's totally pointless unless you can somehow monetize it. /s
As AI Takes His Readers, A Leading History Publisher Wonders What’s Next - His World History Encyclopedia — the world's second most visited history website — showed up in Google's AI Overviews, synthesized and presented alongside other history sites. Then, its traffic cratered, dropping 25% in November.
Why I recommend against Brave - Haha, did you think the Brave browser's only problem was the bad politics of the CEO? Think again. There's a long, historical list of sins and missteps.
20 Key iPhone Settings to Change | WIRED - Apple's software design strives to be intuitive, but each iteration of iOS contains so many additions and tweaks that it's easy to miss some useful iPhone settings
These iPhone Accessories Are a Total Waste of Money - Your iPhone is a premium device, but not every accessory marketed for it is worth the price. Some, as you'll soon see, are pure gimmicks that prey on fears and misinformation.
Posts online correctly cracked the formula for Trump's tariffs | Snopes.com MAGAts lie about almost everything, including easily disproven economics fallacies
Allison Riggs: This Is a Fight for the Very Soul of Democracy - Democracy Docket - In my home state of NC, a Republican who lost by 65,000 votes in November 2024 is coming close to succeeding in reversing his defeat by appealing to Republican dominated courts full of his donors and supporters.
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AppAddict's One-Year Anniversary
One year ago I posted my first app review on AppAddict. I'd recently subscribed to a new blogging service and I was trying to figure out what to write. I figured that my love of downloading and testing new software was something worth sharing. Besides, I was trying to figure out DNS for websites and using different domains and subdomains with different providers. The first review was about Rond Life Mapper, an iOS app for recording your GPS coordinates as you go through your day. Since then, I've posted 370 times. App Addict has been quoted in Lifehacker, The Verge and in newsletters like The Hiro Report and Labnotes. The moderators of r/MacApps on Reddit helped me out a bit by adding a link in the sidebar to the blog.
Halfway through the year, I purchased a new domain and moved all the content to it. I started a news letter a couple of months ago and I continue to hear from folks who subscribe via RSS. The blog is still not monetized. I've never run a single ad nor have I ever charged for content. I don't have any plans to change that. I love hearing from developers with new apps they want me to try. I also feel flattered that the people behind some of my favorite Apps like Popclip and Default Folder X have contacted me to express gratitude after I gushed about them in a blog posts.
I've worked out a system for finding news apps. I have a long list of
prospective candidates bookmarked and a collection of web pages I check
regularly for newly announced titles or updates. I am thankful for the
great Mac community, free speech and the IndieWeb scene. I'm glad a
subscribed to SetApp so I could
discover a long list of great titles to adapt into my workflow. Thanks
for reading. I hope to be here for another anniversary next year.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
On a clear day, you aan see forever
Lake Mattamuskeet, Dare County, NC, one of the world’s premier spots for spotting waterfowl.
Early Evening, April 4

Early evening, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
Pride, In the Name of Love - U2
Shortly after 6:00 PM on this date in 1968, the bullets of an assassin took the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the only American born in the 20th century honored with a national holiday. At the time of his death, King was one of the most unpopular men in the United States. He's probably received more death threats than anyone involved in the Civil Rights movement. Many people believe that he foresaw his own death.
King was in Memphis that day in support of striking sanitation workers. He was stridently anti-capitalist, dedicated to a world where wealth wasn't relegated to a tiny minority while working people lived in poverty. In his speech the night before his murder, King's prophetic words are chilling:
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
I was only three years old when Dr. King died, so I have no memory of him. I do remember the struggle to get his birthday made into a holiday. Some Southern states insist on co-honoring Robert. E Lee on the same day because, well, some southern states are run by racist assholes, kind of like out whole country is now.
Later on the evening of April 4th, Robert Kennedy, Sr., gave a speech in Indianapolis that he led off by annoucing King's murder, eliciting screams of rage and pain from those in the audience. He spoke for the first time in public about the murder of his brother in Dallas five years prior. Then he uttered the words that were to be engraved on his memorial, for he too was to die by an assassins bullets just a couple of months later.
"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Every honest person in the US knows that we still haven't gotten to the promised land. We still have the same division that Kennedy spoke about. Despite the fascist victory last November, the dream isn't dead, though. We still have the time and the means to make it come true. It's going to take hard work and courage. Will you help?
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Convert CSV Files to Markdown
There are plenty of apps and websites that allow you to download
vast quantities of information as single comma separated value (CSV)
files. You can get
- Your entire Netflix viewing history
- All your Letterboxd reviews
- Books you entered in Goodreads
- Purchase histories from various vendors
- Your passwords and more.
The problem with big flat files like that is that they are not designed for reading. Most people view them in spreadsheet programs like Excel or Numbers.
There is a free repository on GitHub with everything you need to convert CSV files into individual Markdown notes to use in apps like:
The easiest way to keep this up to date is by downloading GitHub Desktop for Mac.. This app lets you easily create and upload your own repositories and download ones that other have posted. Using Github is a free way to share files for other users to download, even if you are not a developer. I have a repository where I share my quotes collection as Markdown files and another one where I share my settings for Mac automation apps like Keyboard Maestro, Better Touch Tool and Hazel.
Once you download the repository, using it is simple. Make sure you have installed Python. The latest version is 3.12. Move your CSV file into the folder with the scripts in it and run the command from the terminal of your choice. I've been using Ghostty lately. The script will begin to run a wizard that asks you which field to use to name your Markdown notes. Then it asks you if you want the information in the YAML front matter or in the body of the not, or both, After that it asks you how you want each column of the CSV file to be formatted (e.g, as is, as text, as formatted text, as links etc.) After you complete the wizard, it instantly creates a data folder within the folder you've been working in with all the Markdown notes. It will create 500 or more notes in just a second or two. It's amazing.
Obviously, you'll want to remove any columns you don't want from your CSV files before using the script. If, after creating the notes, you want to make batch edits via search and replace or be deleting elements, an app like BBEdit or VSCode can do that for you across all the files in your folder.
Iconic Restaurants and Chains

I've written before about my enjoyment of regional dishes. . Close behind that is my enjoyment of iconic regional chains. I'll grant you that they rarely serve haute cuisine but I don't care. Fast food is popular because it's usually reasonably palatable and consistent. Often, I just want some food, not a dining experience.
If you're ever in my neck of the woods (North Carolina), two places you definitely need to check out are:
- Cook Out - home cooked, hand patted burgers. Get it Cook Out style with slaw, chili, mustard and onions
- Smithfield's Chicken and Barbecue - Pork barbecue served with vinegar based sauce, southern fried chicken, banana pudding and copious amounts of sweet iced tea
When visiting Texas, a couple of can't miss chains are:
- Whataburger - a solid choice for a burger
- Buc-ees - You need to experience a Buc-ees to understand it. They are gigantic interstate rest emporiums that not only sell food, they also have over a 100 gas pumps and a whole crew of people just to sell beef jerky
California
Midwest
Miami
I'd love to know what's iconic where you live. You never know where I could go.
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Japanese Maple
I brought this tree home from my grandparents old house when it was a couple of feet tall in 1996. Today it’s taller than my roof and shades my front porch. It reminds me of them whenever I see it.
Road Tripping With Teenagers

Wonder Woman and I are taking two of our high-schools aged grandsons on a road trip to Gainesville, Florida on Friday. We are going so that Connor, the 17-year-old, can participate in a charity bike ride for Friedreich's Ataxia, the degenerative nueromuscular illness he lives with. It's one of the few times a year he gets to be around other FA folks. It does him good to see people who have made it to adulthood, living successfully with disease. He was provided with a recumbent bicycle for participating in a clinical study and he is able to pedal it on the four-mile closed course with his Nana running along beside him.
Aiden, his younger brother is coming along to ride his bike in the event too. Even though he and Connor bickered literally all the time, he's always there to steady him when he walks or to help him with his wheelchair if it's one of those days. They are typical teenage boys who speak with great authority on video game culture, anime, fast food deals and the most influential people on YouTube and TikTok. I learn a lot from them.
They aren't thrilled about getting up early for the drive but it's worth it for the carte blanch Wonder Woman gives them to load up on gas station goodies and the freedom to pick out where we eat along the way. They even like hotel breakfasts.
Connor is a fiend for Mac and Cheese. He loves the way they make it at The Cheesecake Factory, so I know we will be going there on one of the nights. He's a kind and sweet kid who constantly asks me if I'm OK. I'm not sure what kind of issues he suspects I might be having, but it always seems important to him that I'm comfortable and happy.
I'm not sure how much they'll communicate with their parents while they're gone. It's not that they will have separation anxiety. The boys just love their folks. They like to keep them informed of what they're up to. Plus, they have a little sister who was a bonus baby. She's in kindergarten. Aiden is her best friend. She'll miss him a lot. Their older brother started college this year. They alternately miss him and celebrate the extra room they have in his absence.
I'm looking forward to spending time with them. They make me laugh and feel young and woefully out of touch with pop culture. I love watching Wonder Woman shine when she's with them. She's really good at being their Nana.
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Pozole Recipe

1 1/2 lbs pork shoulder
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tablespoon cumin powder
2 onions, chopped separated
4 garlic cloves, chopped and separated
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons annato powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
4 cups canned white hominy, drained and rinsed
3-5 cups pork broth, from cooking pork shoulder
salt
2 whole fresh jalapenos, chopped (optional)
This recipe requires a simple prep.
Prepare by the onion, peel the garlic, chop the onion, peel and chop the 2 garlic cloves,
Place the meat in a large saucepan and just cover with lightly salted water.
Add one onion, 2 cloves peeled garlic, pepper, cumin, and oregano.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, skim off any foam that rises, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
Saute the second chopped onion and garlic in oil until translucent.
Add the remaining spices, stir for a minute.
Stir in the canned hominy, pork broth (if there is not enough pork broth, add chicken stock, I like to add it anyway for flavor, about 2-4 cups, eyeball the amount you like), and jalapenos
Cook at a simmer, covered, for 45 to 60 minutes until the meat and hominy are tender.
If necessary, cook for up to an additional 60 minutes until the chilies and onions are well blended into the broth
Degrease the stew, taste for salt, and serve in soup bowls.
Garnishes that are always served with are:
lots of lime/lemon wedges.
sliced radishes.
chopped cilantro.
Shredded cabbage(not red).
fresh packaged fried corn tortillas.
School Starts in August

This is my entry in the April IndieWeb Carnival hosted by Jamie Thiglestad on Renewal.
One of the things I miss about working in public schools is the comfortable rhythm of the annual cycle. Unlike teachers and junior administrators, i worked twelve months of the year, not ten months like most of them. I wasn't jealous of them, not exactly. I loved the summer months when the giant high schools were mostly empty. The county adjusted our work schedule so we could have Friday's off. Some summers were non-stop projects on big technology renewals. There were others when it was tough to find things to do.
When August rolled around, and a new school year was about to kick off, it was the beginning of the cycle of life for a gigantic educational machine. I enjoyed seeing the first year teachers, regardless of whether they were young college graduates or second career types. What I really liked was seeing the paraprofessionals who sent to school and finally became teachers themselves. My district hired many teachers from northern states where it's challenging to get a job because the vacancies are few. Down here in the dirty south, where we don't have teacher's unions, it's a struggle to find qualified people.
At the high schools, before classes even start, the athletes show up on campus for fall sports. I can still hear the chants of practicing cheerleaders echoing through the empty halls. I can see another cohort of football players trying to survive another August afternoon practice, with the humidity above 90% and the temperatures near 100 degrees. I'm just so glad that these days, coaches know enough to let the players drink water. In my day and before, we were denied water for fear that it would cause cramps. In the middle of a three-hour August practice they'd give us a small handful of ice chips. That was it. Crazy, huh?
When the first day of school rolled around, I'd always try to be at a primary school to watch the spectacle of sobbing parents dropping off little Tommy and little Susie for the beginning of kindergarten. The veteran teachers were excellent at taking the kids and getting rid of the overly dramatic parents like a border collie herding sheep. Occasionally they'd even have to get the school resource officer to ask parents to leave because they were having such severe separation anxiety.
In the upper grades, I'd pay attention to what the kids were wearing and all the new haircuts and hairstyles. Almost everyone is nervous at the beginning of the year, except those veteran teachers. A new school year always meant a lot of work for me. Problems that went unreported the previous spring would pop up as emergencies. Some things, power cords for example, would always mysteriously disappear over the summer. Laptops that worked fine in May would be non-functional in September. It would normally take until about the first of October to get everything working at peak efficiency.
I worked in a county with 26 schools. Every one of them had its culture. Some had tremendous community involvement, while others would have trouble getting parents to come to open house. I learned which lunchroom ladies took the job of making tasty food seriously, and which lunchrooms to avoid at all costs. Things would evolve, though. People would retire or move on, and their replacements could make things better or worse. I've seen faculties devastated by the transfer of a beloved principal. I've seen the opposite effect when an unpopular administrator finally moved on.
Every month was predictable. Holiday breaks and exams came and went. Different sports seasons had their peculiarities. The growing sense of excitement in the spring as summer approached always felt nice. Watching another senior class get ready to move out into the world was sobering. I saw kids go all the way through their K-12 education, leave, go to college and come back as teachers. Like I said, it's a cycle and every new year is the renewal of that cycle.
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TeraCopy for Mac
I'd stayed away from TeraCopy for Mac for a long time because it
didn't have good reviews. It was updated for Apple Silicon earlier this
year, so I decided to try it out. I have some huge folders with tens of
thousands of images and audio files that I need to copy to and from
external drives and computers. I easily set up a job on a 2019 MacBook
Pro to copy 135GB from an external mechanical hard drive to the internal
SSD over a thunderbolt port. It took about 30 minutes and I was able to
use the functionality of TeraCopy to verify the integrity of the files.
Features
- During transfers, any problematic files will be tagged and skipped without aborting the whole process. After the transfer is complete, you can retry only the skipped files.
- You can proactively handle any file naming conflicts that occur during transfer by selecting the "skip all" function. After copying you can generate a report of the transfer, generate checksum files and run scripts automatically.
- Integrates with MacOS by preselecting as source and target the folders you have open in Finder. TeraCopy can copy files to a folder opened in Finder with Cmd + Alt + V shortcut.
- TeraCopy preserves the original date and time of your files.
- The pro version can save file lists with all related information as HTML and CSV files.
- The pro version allows you to omit certain file types and folders when copying which is great if you want to copy just the photographs and not the videos from Apple's live photos.
You can get TeraCopy on the Mac App Store.
File Sharing Roundup - The Best Ways to Move Data Between Devices

There are many reasons sharing files between computers for even the most basic of home users:
- Backup
- Moving documents to a computer connected to a local printer
- Information shared between your and your partner or spouse
- Installation files for programs you want on more than one computer
- Consolidating a family photos album
- Moving downloaded movies or music to your home media server
I got an email from a friend today who explained to me that he's used a particular method to create a folder on his parent's computer into which they can drop their various tax documents as they receive them so that he can access them all when it comes time to fill out the forms. For them. I just set up a method of file sharing to copy nothing but downloaded video files from my laptop to my iPad in preparation for traveling when I need something to watch.
Here are a variety of ways to share files, both temporarily and continuously connected.
Blip - this app transfers individual files between two devices no matter where they are located using end to end encryption. Files can be as larger as 2 GB. It works on Macs, iOS and Windows devices. Free. Blip - Free Cross Platform File Transfers | AppAddict
Local Send - this works like Blip but is limited to devices that are on the same network, like your home Wi-Fi, or between you and your partner in a hotel. It works on Mac and iOS. https://appaddict.app/post/local-send-easy-to-set-up-and-easy-to-use
Native File Sharing - File sharing has been baked into Macs since the first version of OS X. Most experienced users can set it up easily enough. Set up file sharing on Mac - Apple Support
Cloud Services - If you use iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or a similar service, sharing is built in, whether the recipient has the service or not. You can generate links. In a case where you want to share between two computers that you own, you can install the client or sign into the same account in the case of iCloud on each of your computers. There are Windows and iOS clients for most services.
Nord VPN Meshnet - If you use Nord as your VPN, you can use Meshnet. Meshnet is a way to safely access other devices, no matter where in the world they are. Once set up, Meshnet functions just like a secure local area network (LAN) — it connects devices directly. This makes Meshnet a great fit for activities that require high speed, low latency, and advanced security — activities like file sharing, active work collaborations, and intense multiplayer gaming. - Meshnet explained | Meshnet docs
Syncthing - You can set this up between any two devices and automatically and securely keep an entire directory of files securely shared. Syncthing - Free and Open-Source Cross Platform File Sharing | AppAddict
Email - You can just about always use the modern equivalent of Sneaker Net, like a caveman and just email files in a pinch. it's the the fastest or the most secure or the most efficient method, but it will do in a pinch.
To tie these different methods together, a good file manager comes in handy. If you want to upgrade Finder on your Mac, my recommendation is Qspace. Qspace
For file management on an iOS device, you can't go wrong with FileBrowser Pro. - FileBrowser Pro - For File Intensive Network Connected Workflows | AppAddict
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Syncthing - Free and Open-Source Cross Platform File Sharing
I first heard about the free and open-source file syncing app, Syncthing, when I started using
Obsidian and may people were suggesting it as the back end of their DIY
vault syncing strategy. I ended up using another method for Obsidian,
but larley I have been exploring numerous ways to share files in my home
lab setup, which features Macs, iOS devices an Ubuntu Linux box and VMs
of all different sorts, including Windows.
The aptly named Syncthing Foundation is behind the app that they describe thusly
Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers in real time, safely protected from prying eyes. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, whether it is shared with some third party, and how it’s transmitted over the internet.
Syncthing is private and secure.
- Private - no central server. Your data is only on your machines
- Encrypted - secured using TLS
- Authenticated - every device is identified by a strong cryptographic certificate.
Open
- Open Protocol - Adheres to a documented specification
- Open Source - All code is available in GitHub
- Open Development - When bugs happen, they are dealt with and not hidden
- Open Discourse - In the Syncthing Forum
Easy to Use
- Powerful - Sync unlimited folders with different people or just between your won devices
- Portable - Administered through a web browser
- Simple - "Syncthing doesn’t need IP addresses or advanced configuration: it just works, over LAN and over the Internet. Every machine is identified by an ID. Give your ID to your friends, share a folder and watch: UPnP will do if you don’t want to port forward or you don’t know how."
My first use case with Synthing is going to be loading downloaded videos from my Mac onto my iPad for use when traveling. I'll let you know how it goes.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
Oh Death

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” ― Joseph Stalin
During the pandemic, while half of America was arguing that COVID-19 was no worse than the flu, the city government of New York was hiring refrigerated trucks to keep bodies in because they ran out of space in their morgues. I've known may people who've been sick with COVID-19, but only one who died from the illness, a man I'd known since childhood. He was a retired judge, the father of a childhood friend and the wife of my former boss. While Wonder Woman and I were hiking the Appalachian Trail, he and his wife picked us up and took us to their Western North Carolina vacation home for a couple of meals and a shower. The next day they hiked with us almost to the Tennessee line. His fight with COVID-19 was short, One day he was joking with his family about not being able to talk and the next day he was gone. Forever.
My personal encounters with death have been just that, personal. I cam home from school one day in the ninth grade to find out that the matriarch of the farm I lived on had dies during the previous night. As a result, my entire family had to move to the home of my aunt's father. It was on the same farm, only 50 yards or so from where we lived.
During my school years, my class was lucky. We didn't lose anyone in the way that I witnessed numerous cohorts lose members during me educational career. As soon as we graduated, though, the toll started to mount. Within a year or two, car crashes claimed lives. A fiery plance crash in Gander, Newfoundland with nearly 300 members of the 101st Airborne Division aboard claimed the life of the trainer from my high school football team along with everyone else on board. Cases of cancer and sudden heart attacks took some of the star athletes we had as well.
My father talked about death often. Having spent two years in Vietnam, he'd witnessed too much of it. His generation died in that war in the tens of thousands. Additionally, since he was a pilot, he knew too many other pilots who had died in accidents at the hands of flight students or just by stupid bad luck when their helicopters hit unmarked power wires.
Even those of us who are not wrapped up in celebrity culture can still be affected by the deaths of famous people we never knew. I remember the August morning when my mother told my brother and me that Elvis Presley had died during the night. It seemed like that was a big deal for a long time, especially to the hucksters on television selling tribute albums and all the people who wrote books about The King. I remember when presidents Truman and Johnson died, pretty close together. Then it was Pope Paul VI and a month later his successor, John Paul !. I learned more about Catholicism during that period than I had ever know, mostly because there are so few Catholics in the small southern towns where I grew up.
John Lennon's senseless murder also impacted me. It seemed like so much of the 60s culture was gone before I could grow old enough to appreciate it with so many influential musicians dying young Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon, John Bonham and more.
All of my grandparents survived until I reached adulthood. I was 40 when the last one passed away. The fact that my children got to know them is a source of great joy to me. Now that my oldest grandson is entering his 20s, I have hopes that my Dad will live to be a great-great-grandfather.
Some deaths are seemingly impossible to recover from. My youngest daughter isn't my biological child, but she is mine nonetheless. Her mother and I were married for 18 years. Four years after we separated, she died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. My daughter has struggled with it ever since. Today is the anniversary of the death of the father of my two step-daughters, who passed away only a year after his marriage to their mother ended. It was a tragedy and one that is still painful for them.
I try not to think about my own remaining years too much, or those of my parents and senior relatives. Yes, I know it is inevitable, but there is little I can do to prepare for it, and I'd rather just deal with it all when the time comes. It's a beautiful day in my corner of the world today, and I think I'll go outside and enjoy it for a while.
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Cooper River Bridge
One of the largest races in the world is the annual Bridge Run in Charleston, SC
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Probably the most influential time in my life were the years I lived on my uncle's farm, roughly 1979-1983. Although both of my parents were the children of farmers, I didn't have much exposure to agriculture before a fateful Easter vacation I spent with my uncle at an industrial pig farm he was managing. I was in the eighth grade, years away from being able to drive on the road. On the first day of vacation, he showed my brother and me how to operate his 1976 Ford Ranger pickup on the dirt roads of the farm. We also got to use a pressure watcher and assist in all kinds of chores, including a day in the breeding barn.
The following fall, I decided it would be a good idea to use my saved up lunch money to buy my very first joint. I couldn't wait until after school to smoke it, so I went out on the playground, in full view of an entire wing of classrooms, where all of my matches were blown out by the wind. Dejected, with no buzz, I went back into the school building, where I was immediately accosted by a teacher who'd seen me out her classroom window. To make a long story short, the school took a dime view of marijuana possession. The next thing I knew, I was on my way to a new life in a new town where they might let me go to school. That's how I ended up living and working on a farm.
My aunt and uncle treated me and still treat me like one of their sons. Their capacity for love seems limitless. Since I had a knack for getting into stupid amounts of trouble, my uncle decided to keep me too busy to get into mischief. If I weren't busy, I'd be too exhausted. It worked after a few spectacular missteps on my part. By the time I left that farm, everything else other people considered hard work seemed easy to me.
Now, I'm going to get to my point. The one thing I was bitter about in those days was a lack of praise. The old man just didn't believe in handing it out except in small amounts and on very rare occasions. I could spend an entire Saturday splitting multiple cords of firewood—some of the hardest work I've ever done, and he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge it. It drove me nuts. I respected (and feared) him too much to complain much, but every once in a while, I would say something. His standard answer was, "Do you want me to pat you on the back for getting out of bed?"
These days, he's very much a different man when it comes to handing out compliments. He makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he is proud of me, proud of my kids, proud of Wonder Woman. He even brags about teenage me and the things I did way back then.
As a result of my feelings of being unappreciated back in the day, I resolved early on to make it my life mission to hand out props whenever and wherever I could. In the years I worked in public schools, if I saw a teacher doing a good job, I'd tell them how awesome I thought they were. I'd tell the custodians, secretaries, nurses, and lunch ladies the same thing. My children have never doubted that their dad thinks they are superstars. I don't do it insincerely or to be flattering. I just think it is a nice thing to do for people in a world that can often seem cruel and uncaring.
I even hand out real compliments on the Internet to people who have been friendly and helpful. I know how good it feels to get that kind of feedback, even from faceless Internet strangers. That's why I am out here, just waiting for you to do something cool so I can let you know how much I liked it.
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Can You Help Me Find the Photos App I Need?
I'm going to turn the tables today. Instead of giving YOU
information on software, I'm going to ask you to give me some
recommendations. Specifically, I am looking for a photos app. Since I am
eliminating Google and Amazon from my online life, I won't have access
to their photo management tools, which, I will admit are pretty good,
considering that both companies will mine every bit of data they can
from my images in an attempt to extract money from me for their
billionaire owners.
Here are the features I'd like to have:
- Facial recognition to be able to identify people in photos and to be able to group photos of the same person together
- Object search (e.g., dogs, landscapes, babies etc)
- Being able to search by dates is a must
- Tagging
- Smart folders/albums
- The ability to use photos in my file system without the need to enter them into a proprietary system like Apple Photos Library
- The ability to at least read EXIF data and ideally to be able to (batch) edit it.
- A free trial or money back guarantee
- A companion iOS or iPadOS app would be awesome.
Potential Apps
So far, these have been suggested to me, but not buy anyone who actually has any experience with them:
If you know of or use a photo viewer or management program with all or
most of these features, please use one of the contact methods at the
bottom of the page to let me know. I appreciate it! Thanks for reading
App addict!
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly
collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. -
✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou
Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
My Enemy, My Friend
One of the fat ass squirrels from my backyard. I tried feeding them directly in an effort to get them to stop robbing my bird feeders but the greedy little bastards just laughed at me.
Dawn on the Blue Ridge Parkway
If you ever visit western North Carolina, it’s worth getting up early to catch views like this.
Advice for Grandparents

I'm lucky. All four of my grandparents lived into my adulthood. They were each wonderful people in their own way and each had a tremendous influence and helped me become the person I am today. I loved them all obviously and rarely does a day go by when I don't think of them in some way. My parents were teenagers when I was born, as was I when my kids came along. Mom and Dad were only 36 when they got into the grandparent game. Thankfully, my kids gave me a little more breathing room, but I've still been at it for twenty years now.
My personal advice to grandparents is to have as many adventures with your grandkids as you can. If circumstances permit it, give them the gift of your time. Take them camping, to fall carnivals and Polar Express Train Rides. Take them to see new Disney Movies. Remember their birthdays. Create some rituals. My kids know that every car trip with Wonder Woman and I involves a stop at the store for a snack and a drink. They know when they come to our house that we will have their favorite treats. We have always had a toybox in our house too.
Here are some more suggestions from around the internet.
10 Tips for How to Rock as a Brand-New Grandparent
Grandparenting Tips: How to be a Better Grandparent
How Can I Be A Fun Grandparent? 16 Tips For Grandparents – Retirement Tips and Tricks
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Don't Make Me Learn Something New!

I was directly involved in supporting education in a K-12 environment for a couple of decades and the in higher ed, at the university level, for a few more. My customers were the people who conveyed knowledge and, indirectly, to their students. I listened to plenty of enthusiastic teachers talk about teaching strategies, from the ones who were helping first-graders learn to read all the way through to physicians teaching medical students. Obviously, these instructors understood the importance of learning — for other people, but seldom for themselves, unfortunately.
Since the 90s, when technology started to become ubiquitous in the workplace and computer literacy became necessary in most professional level jobs, there have obviously been many changes. Just the way we store data has evolved from different sized floppy disks, to Zip Drives, writable CD-ROMS, larger hard drives, USB thumb drives to the cloud storage most people use today. Installing software went from typing esoteric commands into a terminal to merely clicking a single button in and app store. Yay for progress!
The problem is that the changes in the technology come too rapidly for many. It seems that there's a certain class of people who wake up one day and just decide they are done learning new things. They are just over it. It's like their brain is full and there is no room for any new information. I've been to countless meetings where I've listened to bosses agonize about how to implement something new while fooling end users into thinking nothing has changed. Bosses get to be bosses numerous times because they are people pleasers, and making people mad goes against the official boss code of conduct. When Microsoft decided to move the Start button from the lower-left side of the screen where it had happily rested since 1995, to the middle of the taskbar, there were millions of IT departments Googling "HOW TO MAKE WINDOWS 11 LOOK LIKE WINDOWS 10."
Doing something as simple as changing the naming scheme for network printers caused numerous professors, supposedly highly educated people, to lose their minds at my former job. They acted like the IT department had a meeting to see what we could do to make their jobs harder. In the early 2000s, Apple moved the power button from the right side of the original iMac to the front of the next generation of educational computers, the eMac. People freaked out about that too.
It's funny. When people go buy a fancy new car or the latest big screen television, they seem to have no problem learning the ins and outs of that tech. Some of that equipment can be pretty complicated, too. Those same people, however, are the same ones who can't seem to remember which password to use in the correct situation to effectively do the job their employer pays them for. Hell, there are more people than you probably want to know about who simply cannot create a password to save their lives following modern conventions. I've wasted hours of my life that I will never get back waiting for people to think of a usable password. Often, I would just have to step in and do it for them after they failed numerous times.
Huge numbers of people never read another book after they finish their formal education. Being entertained becomes the official purpose of life. That's why I get such a crush on anyone I see reading a classic novel or taking a night class at the community college just for the joy of learning a new skill or hobby. I have a long list of things I am interested in learning now that I have leisure time.
Thanks for reading. I'm sorry I missed a couple of days this week. Life gets busy.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for my tech blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day, in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
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Keyboard Centered Apps for Power Users
A global keyboard shortcut is a combination of keys you can press
while in any application on your Mac to execute an action belonging to a
background process. I typically have a half dozen or more apps running
in the background that use glocal keyboard shortcuts. Some of these
include:
Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestro is an automation app that allows you to initiate or control just about any repetitive process. Don't let the name fool you though. Keyboard Maestro can execute actions based on two dozen triggers, not just keyboard combinations. Some of the actions I launch with the keyboard from Keyboard Maestro include typing in extra long passwords with a shortcut, launching apps using keyboard combinations, launching a shortcut that queries OpenAI using my API key, activating templates in Drafts, running AppleScripts and more.
My Top 10 Keyboard Maestro Macros
Raycast
Raycast is a keyboard app launcher with over 1000 available plugins, including an emoji picker, window manager, clipboard history manager, notes, passwords and many more. You can assign hotekys to any action. Some of the ones I use most frequently are searching Kagi, generating alt-text for images I post on the Internet, opening my downloads folder, searching social media sites, searching Reddit, searching YouTube, sending clipboard text to Drafts and Obsidian.
My 10 Favorite Raycast Use Cases (and all the apps it replaced) | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
Things 3
Things 3 is a task manager with clients for macOS, iOS and iPadOS. It has two built in global keyboard shortcuts: 1) The Quick Entry window lets you enter new to-dos into Things from anywhere without having to switch applications. Use the keyboard shortcut to make the window appear. 2) With Autofill, the Quick Entry window is automatically pre-filled with useful information from the application you are working in. From Mail, for example, it will create a link to the email you're reading. In a browser, it captures the URL of the page you are on.
Things 3, Maybe the Pinnacle in App Design | AppAddict
Dropover
Dropover is the king of shelf apps. Shelves are mini-platforms to hold files while you wait to move them or perform actions on them. Some of the actions you can accomplish from Dropover include sending a file to cloud storage and sharing the link, converting or resizing images, sending a file by Airdrop, in a message or email, attaching a file to a note. You can invoke Dropover when you are in any app, which is very convenient for grabbing an image from a web page or some text from any app. Dropover works well with Apple Shortcuts too, making it easy to move and manipulate files.
Supercharge
Supercharge is a an that features a variety of tweaks and shortcuts for a number of tasks. My favorites are quit all apps, hide all apps, close all notifications, open Passwords and toggle desktop widgets on and off.
Better Touch Tool
Better Touch Tool is anoter automation app that can do a couple of things that Keyboard Maestro and Raycast can't do, such as use the fn key and trigger actions from text strings. I use simple double taps of modifier keys to activate and deactivate Notification Center and Mission Control.
Better Touch Tool Favorites | AppAddict
Others
- Fantastical and BusyCal both allow you to create new appointments and tasks from anywhere on your Mac.
- Language Tool is a writing aid with spelling and grammar checking. You can invoke it anywhere you enter text.
- Default Folder X has a search tool that can bu sommoned from its menu bar interface at any time.
Making It Easier
Two free apps to get to make life as a keyboard warrior easier are Karabiner
Elements for remapping keys and creating macros and KeyClu,
which gives you a heads-up display of keyboard shortcuts in any app,
allowing you to enter your own for apps that it doesn't detect
automatically.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to
your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your
life - Subscribe |
AppAddict Newsletter
Georgia Mountains
The mountains in northern Georgia, taken from the patio of the lodge at Amicalola Falls State Park, home of the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.
This Week's Bookmarks - Privacy Guides, 21-Day Cyber Cleanse, Famous Resaurants, True Crime, Wild West Food, Ad Blocker Testing, Liberation Library

Privacy Guides: Independent Privacy & Security Resources - Privacy Guides is a not-for-profit, volunteer-run project that hosts online communities and publishes news and recommendations surrounding privacy and security tools, services, and knowledge.
Cleanse - The 21-day Cyber-Cleanse: designed to remove toxic tech from your life
Most Famous Restaurant in Every State - Business Insider - From fine dining restaurants to local barbecue joints, every state has at least one legendary restaurant that everyone knows about.
True Crime - Masters treasures went missing, then the FBI showed up | GolfDigest.com -
The first item the young man stole from Augusta National was a green and white golf towel. This was just after the 2007 Masters, when he had come to understand it was customary for warehouse employees to take one or two small things
What Food was Served at Wild West Saloons? - YouTube - It starts with cowboy bacon and beans and goes from there - From A Taste of History
AdBlock Tester: test your AdBlock extensions - How good is your ad blocking setup? Just go to the page to receive a grade. If you want to get a score of 99 or 100 out of 100, shoot me an email and I'll send you my setup.
Liberating Library - Liberating Library is a book distribution program and online collection of relevant radical resources run by a Pan-African socialist.
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rclone - An Easy to Use and Powerful CLI
There are quite a few apps with GUIs available for Macs that let
you connect various cloud services to upload, download and move files.
Most of them are costly. Today I needed to move files from Google Drive
to a kDrive, a cloud storage company in Switzerland, Instead of using
one of the expensive apps, I opted for a free command utility, rclone,
and in just a few minutes initiated a complete transfer of the data on
my drive.
If you've dealt with cloud storage, including iCloud over the past few versions of macOS, you might agree with me that Apple has made a mess of it. They insist on hiding your files away in ~/Library/Cloud Storage and other non-obvious locations. By default, the files stay in the cloud, making utilities like Hazel ineffective managing them. You just never know when you click on a file if you are going to have to wait to download it or not. The official clients for Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box.com us that strategy. Even when you select the option to keep a folder downloaded, you get no notice that the download is complete and, in my experience, I have found that the settins revert from time to time with no notice, forcing me to redownload files.
So, I was really happy today to take the time to set up rclone to move the files. You can get a good overview of rclone's history and capabilities from Wikipedia.. You can use rclone with a long list of cloud services.
You can download and install rclone right On a Mac from the terminal, using the command
sudo -v ; curl [rclone.org/install.s...](https://rclone.org/install.sh) | sudo bash
Documentation
You can read the documentation on rclone at the official GitHub repository.
Here are links on how to set rclone for a few common services:
Full Compatibility List
- Alibaba (Aliyun) Object Storage System (OSS)
- Amazon Drive (See note)
- Amazon S3
- Aruba COS[27]
- Backblaze B2
- Box
- C14
- Ceph
- Citrix ShareFile
- Cloudian[28]
- Dell-EMC ECS[29]
- DigitalOcean Spaces
- Dreamhost
- Dropbox
- Enterprise File Fabric[30]
- FTP
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google Drive
- Google Photos
- HDFS
- HTTP
- Hubic
- IBM COS S3
- Jottacloud
- Koofr
- Mail.ru Cloud
- Memset Memstore
- MEGA.io
- Microsoft Azure Blob Storage
- Microsoft OneDrive
- MinIO
- NetApp StorageGRID[31]
- Nextcloud
- OVH
- OpenDrive
- OpenIO[32]
- OpenStack Swift
- Oracle Cloud Storage
- ownCloud
- pCloud
- premiumize.me
- put.io
- QingStor
- Rackspace Cloud Files
- rsync.net
- Scaleway
- Scality[33]
- Seafile
- Selectel[34][35]
- SFTP
- StackPath
- SugarSync
- Tardigrade
- Tencent COS
- Wasabi
- WebDAV
- Yandex Disk
- Zoho Workdrive[30]
GUI Alternatives
File Managers/Browsers
- Odrive - $99 a year
- Multcloud - $189
- Raidrive $34 a year (limited free tier)
- Expandrive $75 lifetime
FTP/SFTP/Cloud Clients
Mounters (Network Drive Mappers)
- MountainDuck - $39
- CloudMounter - $75
- Netdrive - $50
Sundown in Town
I love a parking garage for getting pictures of lines and shadows. Sometimes urban photography can be quite fun.
Who Are You Thinking About?

There is a saying in the recovery community that if I could do anything to my worse enemy, I'd make him self-centered. There's nothing worse than continually being concerned with "How am I doing today?" I'm not knocking therapy. It's helped untold numbers of people, including me. Nor, am I smack-talking introspection because questioning your motives and evaluating yourself are healthy practices. No, what I'm getting at is the type of person who is always concerned with fairness, about what size your slice of pie is compared to his, about how life rewards you while it shafts him. I don't like that guy. I would rather not hang out with him.
What I find enjoyable is having a circle of people and a mind with enough space to let them all in. Most of us have our person, to borrow a concept from Grey's Anatomy. We have the one person whi is at the head of the line when we start making space in our consciousness when we begin to make room for something outside the scope of our wants and needs. No need to tell you that my person is Wonder Woman, my wife, my partner, my friend, and my coach. Although she sometimes doubts it, I evaluate almost every interesting fact in my life to decide whether I should share it with her. Tech-geek that I am, I have special apps and certain workflows just to be able to send her things during the day that she might like or be interested in.
One of my morning rituals is reading over my journal and looking at photos from this day in past years. Now that I've been doing the IndieWeb thing for longer than a year, I'm starting to see quotes from my favorite bloggers show up in my journal. I dig being able to send someone a screenshot to let them know, "Hey, I thought you were pretty astute last year and I still feel the same way." Who doesn't like to get fan mail, right?
For the people, like me, who share personal bits and pieces of their lives, well, it's better than a television show trying to keep up with what's happening in people's lives. During the day I start to wonder, How is mb feeling today, He's been ill. Or I wonder how Annie's son finished out the wrestling season or if Alexandra is freezing her butt off waiting for the bus on a Quebec sidewalk. When I think about the people working for the government, I think about Jen, Scott's wife her who had her dream vacation curtailed because of the fascists. and, OMG, if someone goes off the grid for an extended period of time, I start getting nervous. It constantly happens. Someone I enjoy reading, just gets fed up with the Internet and they disappear. I hate it.
It's a rare day when I don't send someone a photo I have of them. This week, I sent my youngest brother a shot of the one and only time he ever wore cycling shorts in his entire life. He called me stupid. I laughed. My brother-in-law scanned hundreds of my extended family's photos and shred them with us all. I like to find funny, early 1950s pictures of my dad with his flattop haircut and send those to him or pictures of my mom who was and is beautiful, just to let her know I am thinking of her. I have to stop myself from inundating my kids with constant pictures of their kids, most of which they sent me in the first place. It's just that all those grand babies are too precious not to show someone.
I have a vivid imagination. I consider it a blessing. When I was a third shift prison guard, stuck on a gun tower for eight hours, decades before cell phones were a thing, the only way I kept my sanity was an active mind. These days, I catch myself imagining the lives of my favorite fictional characters from television shows and movies. I gauge a show by how easy it is to bring its characters to life in my imagination. Take The Wire for instance. It was a show about the people of Baltimore, all kinds of people: cops, drug dealers, dockworkers, politicians, reporters, school teachers and more. One of my all-time favorites was Omar Little, a gay gangster with a penchant for robbing drug dealers, never regular people. He was courageous, funny, loving, intelligent and knew exactly what he wanted right until he was killed by a grade school kid in a corner store while buying his beloved Honey Nut Cheerios and Newport cigarettes. I think about Omar often and wonder what would have happened to him if he'd lived.
I'm not too good at striking up conversations with strangers, although in the right circumstances I don't mind it. My mother is the master at making friends with waitresses and clerks. She isn't putting people on either. She's genuinely interested in them. Mom admires anyone with a kind spirit and looks down on no one. Not once, ever. She might not approve of certain lifestyle choices, but she doesn't consider herself superior to anyone. She's just glad she doesn't have any tattoos and wishes I didn't either. My mother wasn't a big fan of me getting my ear pierced either, but that was a long time ago.
The moral of this longer than I intended post, is that if you want to be happy, think about others. Think about how you can make them happy. It will rub off. I promise.
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It Must Be True, I Read It on the Internet

One of the reasons that the United States is in the middle of an existential crisis is that too many damned people believe everything they read on the Internet. For these people, the Internet is not the information super highway. It is a cesspool of lies, misinformation, manipulation by foreign adversaries and scammers out to make a buck. It is beholden to MAGA and the right wing, who grow angry and vengeful when they are fact checked. To keep from being attacked by the government, Meta, the parent company of Facebook fired its fact checkers when Donald Trump was reelected. Elon Musk fired Twitter's fact checkers when he paid 44 billion dollars for the company.
No information source is infallible. Still, intelligent people should be able to separate fact from fiction. In the immortal words of way too may people Do your research.
Credible Information Sources
PolitiFact - Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.
Snopes.com | The definitive fact-checking site and reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. - Snopes (/ ˈ s n oʊ p s/), formerly known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture.
Some other fact-checking resources similar to Politifact and Snopes include:
- FactCheck.org - A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center
- Fact Check: Political & News Fact Check | AP News
- Fact Check | Reuters
- .Full Fact
- BBC Verify
- FactCheck – Channel 4 News
- Lead Stories
- Truth or Fiction? – Seeking truth, exposing fiction
- International Fact-Checking Network - Poynter
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is myapp review blog, delivered daily in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
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Cool Tools for Mastodon
When it comes to the new breed of social media, I prefer the
federated and independent nature of Mastodon over everything else. I
want nothing to do with Threads or anything else tainted by Meta. I like
the atmosphere at Bluesky, but we have to face that it is a company
founded by a billionaire, funded with venture capital and it's going to
be enshittified one day - breaking the heart of millions. Mastodon, on
the other hand was founded in Europe and is out of the control of the
American fascist movement. Unlike the reality with Blue Sky, you really
can have your very own Mastodon server. While it has an undeserved
reputation for being difficult for normal people to use, there is only a
single extra step to get started and there are many guides and walk
throughs o hold your hand throught that step. In the 15 months of being
on Mastodon, I have yet to witness the kind of hate filled craziness
seen on corporate owned social media every day.
There are almost 100 different apps with Mastodon access available for Apple hardware and a few online, browser based clients as well. Here are a few unique offerings that can compliment or replace your primary Mastodon client.
Newsmast (free)
In a first for the Fediverse, we’re seamlessly integrating content from your home server with Newsmast’s hand-curated, knowledge-sharing Communities, hosted on our customised Mastodon instance, newsmast.social. There’s no scraping or content aggregation - all the community content comes from Newsmast users or via federation, and is moderated by applying the Oliphant Tier 0 blocklist, filters that keep out NSFW, crypto and hate-speech, and our human team.
Automadon ($14.99 year)
Automadon provides a suite of Shortcuts actions for Mastodon with support for multiple accounts. Actions available within Shortcuts include: • Post to Mastodon • Full-text search • Get account details, timelines, and following/follower lists • Interact with posts, including boosting, favoriting, and bookmarking posts • Follow/unfollow, block/unblock, mute/unmute accounts
Toot Later for Mastodon ($4.00)
With TootLater, you can: • Schedule multiple posts with different dates and times • Add multiple Mastodon accounts and switch between them easily • Attach images to your posts and preview them before sending • TootLater uses the official Mastodon API to ensure your account and posts are secure
Video for Ants ($3.99)
Got videos that are too big to upload to Mastodon? Everyone does. What kind of limits are these?! All you have to do is pick your video and then tap a button and video for ants will automatically convert the format, compress the bitrate, and optimize the fps (frame rate) as needed to make them fit. You only have to tap a button. That's it. That's the app.
Threaditor: write for everyone ($9.99)
- Draft threads for popular microblogging platforms all in one place
- Save unlimited threads to the cloud - always pick up where you left off
- Link your accounts to automatically publish, and group accounts to post to multiple places at once
- Add images and polls to your posts
Re: Toot ($2.99)
Re: Toot turns Mastodon posts into images that are suitable for quote posts. Images are accompanied by attribution to the original author and an alternative text. Images created by Re: Toot can also be shared to other social networks and messaging services. To create an image from a Mastodon post, just copy the link the post and open Re: Toot or invoke the app through the Share Sheet.
Still Followers for Mastodon (Expensive - just use the free features)
Still Followers is a useful analytics tool to keep you fro getting suckered by the people who game social media by following and unfollowing people. The free version offers several useful tools for the casual user.
AppAddict Picks
- My favorite Mastodon client isMona for Mastodon, a one time purchase with more features than any other Mastodon client.
- My favorite Mastodon instance is social.lol, which is for members of OMG.LOL and IndieWeb platform with multiple features inlcuding a link in bio page, a blog, photo hosting, an omg.lol email address and much more, all for $20 a year.
- My favorite social media tool for analytics, scheduled posts. account discovery, reports and more is Fedica. The free tier is useful. A paid membership is insane. Works with 10 different social media platforms.
- If you want to learn more about the Fediverse, how to use it, what it can do - head over to Fedi Tips.
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a
weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on
Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe |
Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, one app review delivered to your mailbox every day. in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
Hiker's View of Massachusetts
On the Appalachian Trail in New England, you spend all day moving the through the woods of Connecticut to suddenly come upon this cleared field with its breathtaking view of Western Massachussets in the distance. My god, it was so beautiful. One of best moments of my hike.
Browser Extensions Are a Secret Weapon
This is a special edition of AppAddict. Tonight, I'm covering one
of the best sources of computing functionality that often goes
overlooked in the hunt for productivity enhancements and better work
flows. There are many browser extensions that replace or enhance apps
you use every day. This is my personal aresenal that I use in my daily
workflow.
A modern Mac is a miraculous machine. My decidedly middle of the road laptop is an M2 with 16GB od RAM. I bought it in December of 2023 and hope to continue using it for years. The number of programs I have running at login (~40) would give Y2K Lou nightmares. The sheer number of installed applications would freak (628) that guy out. Finally, there are my browser extensions, and I'm only talking about the ones for my daily driver, Vivaldi, not the ones in the other five browsers I have installed. Where once I would have been concerned with somehow slowing down the Internet, today I just want to get the maximum amount of functionality out of my interface with it. I use A LOT of extensions. Let's get to them, shall we?
Aboard
Aboard does a a great many things but the way I use it is simple. It what I click when there is a webpage I want to share with my wife. She gets a notification on her phone when I share something and she can view it in the Aboard app or in a browser at the website. It's how I share shows I want to watch, restaurants I want to check out or news items that are blowing my mind.
Activity Watch
Activity Watch is a free time tracker that tells me how long I've been using my computer, which apps I use and for how long and what websites I visited and for how long. I can assign apps and web pages to categories and make the reports it creates as granular as I want to.
Activity Watch - Free No Effort Time Tracker | AppAddict
Language Tool
I use the paid version of this grammar, paraphraser and spelling tool, but I have used the free version as well and it is definitely a step up from native tools.
Language Tool - Free is Good, Paid is Better | AppAddict
Anylist Recipe Importer
I only activate this when I'm looking for recipes. Anylist importer clears all the cruft away from recipe sites and kust imports the ingredients and directions and leaves out all the SEO crap. It works with the Mac/iOS/Web app called Anylist, which is an app I've used for over a decade for shopping and packing lists and collecting recipes.
AnyList for Recipes, Shopping and More | AppAddict
Archive Today Automator
This is the extension I couldn't live without. Whenever I want to read a paywalled article from the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Verge, Medium, The Wall Street Journal or practically any other site, I just hit this button in my toolbar to obtain immediate access to a version from the Internet Archive. I subscribe to and support several progressive news organizations so I don't feel bad for reading MSM sites for free.
Block Party
Block Party is a paid service that inspects settings on invasive websites and changes things with your consent to offer yoy the most privacy possible. It works with Reddit, Google, YouTube, Strava, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, amd Instagram.
Bluesky Sidebar
Bluesky sidebar loads on web pages from the Bluesky social media platform and gives you extra information on the people you follow, the people who follow you, trending topics and the lists you are subscribed to.
Cloudhiker
Cloudhiker is a freemium service that is the closest thing you'll find on the wen today to the old Stumble Upon website. Use Cloudhiker to suggest and discover new sites in a large number of categories.
Cloudhiker - StumbleUpon for the IndyWeb | Linkage
Fedica
Fedica is a freemium service that allows you to schedule posts on all the major social media sites, you can crosspost to several of them at once. Paid customers get analytics and research tools, pluse reports from certain sites, like Mastodon and Bluesky.
Fedica - Post to Multiple Social Networks at Once, On a Schedule - For Free | AppAddict
Kagi Privacy Pass
Thiis extension is iused to authenticate to the paid Kagi search engine if you want to block all access toy what you are searching for. With this enabled, there is no history of your search activity using Kagi.
Using Kagi Search Engine on a Mac - Software and Tips | AppAddict
Markdownload
This is another one of my favorite extensons. It copies webpage links as Markdown links for insertion into posts and documents. It cam also copy whole pages as Markdown, although now that usefulness has been supplanted by the Obsidian Web Clipper. Finally is will create a markdown list from all the open tabs in a browser windos. It's great for bloggers and researchers.
MarkDownload - The Browser Extension that Works With #Obsidian | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
Mastodon Redirector
No matter what Mastodon instance I land on while browsing and following toots from others, clicking this button opens the page in my home instance, allowing me to like, follow and comment with ease. I find that ut works better for me than Graze, another plugin with similar features.
Obsidian Web Clipper
This free tool uses templates to download web pages as markdown files. Using AI, you can get summaries of the page and automatically assign tags. It will even download the transcript from YouTube videos. I have templates for IMDB, Bluesky, Mastodon, Reddit, YouTube, Medium, Wikiepedia and general web pages.
Privacy Badger
This free extension from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is not an ad blocker. It works hand in hand with them to detect and block trackers using an algorithm and machine learning. The EFF is working on ways to prevent browser fingerprinting, the strategy used by tech companies to follow you around the web without cookies.
Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation | AppAddict
Raindrop.io
Raindrop is a freemium bookmarking service from which I gety great value. I use it to create webpages of links I want to share, to save canonical copies of stories so that if the are removed from the Internet, I can still access them. I have never used my bookmarks more than I have with Raindrop.
Battle of the Bookmark Managers | AppAddict
Quick Pocket
I am a big believer in automation and in reading the work of smart people at depth. Aside from using Pocket as the excellent read it later service that it is, I also use it's integration with IFTTT and RSS to automate the saving of full text blog entries from Matt Birchler and Jarrod Blundy, two of my favorite tech oriented bloggers. Their articles are routed through Pocket right into Obsidian or Day One for preservation and reference. Pocket is owned by the Mozilla foundation.
Ublock Origin Light
The Original Ublock Origin is still the best as blocker ever made. It is no longer compatible with Chrome, Edge and Vivaldi, although Forefox users can still use it. Using a complete security toolkit that includes a customer DNS server, built in blockers in Vivaldi, Ublock Origin light and Freetube for YouTube, I routinely score 99 or 100 on ad blocking tests.
My Online
Security Setup | Linkage
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is for this blog, in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
Dragonfly
Fun times in the spring with a maco lens. You have to get these shots before the mosquitoes get too bad!
Life is Different

I like Wednesdays. On Wednesdays, Wonder Woman usually gets to work from home, so I get to spend the day with her, even if we don't get a chance to interact all that much. I just like to be able look across the room to see her sitting with her laptop on the couch. When I make tea, I get to make two cups, instead of just one. In all the years before the pandemic, except a snowy day or two, I don't remember her ever working from our home. Like many jobs, hers recognized that today's technology, coupled with the work ethic of modern employees meant that people could indeed, get things done without sitting in a cubicle all day.
Thinking about that got me to consider how many things are different now than they were in the past. Change happens slowly, but when you look back over time, you realize how weird it would be if things you once took for granted became commonplace again. Take smoking, for example. So many people used to smoke and they did it everywhere. My high school had a smoking area outside the cafeteria for students to light up. You could practically see the smoke billowing from the teacher's lounge between classes as the staff went in for a nicotine fix. You could smoke everywhere - in the library, airplanes, restaurants. Hell, you could get an ashtray brought to your hospital bed. At the prison where I worked in the 80s, if an inmate could not afford cigarettes, they cost 45 cents a pack, the state would give them loose tobacco and rolling papers.
Grocery shopping was a different experience too. You used to have to wait for fruits and vegetables to come into season. There were no refrigerated containers bringing you fresh blueberries from South America in December. There was much less variety, too. I don't think I ever had anything but iceberg lettuce until I was well into adulthood. There were two kinds of apples available, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious. Eventually Granny Smith made her way in, but forget having the choice of a half dozen different types like we have today.
Before the gas crisis of the early 70s, most people went to full-service stations where you didn't have to get out of the car. The attendant would check your oil and wash your windshield while you got a fill-up of that sweet 50 cents a gallon leaded gasoline. Other than the time I had to get gas in New Jersey, where the law forbids you from pumping your own, I don't think I have ever had someone gas up my car but me. By the time I was able to drive, we were well into the era of expensive gas. In fact, in terms of real purchasing power, has never cost more than it did when I was in high school, driving my family's 1975 Impala.
Even my kids can wax nostalgically about how things used to be in tech. They remember when they had to beg to use our landline in the evenings because I kept it tied up with my dial-up Internet. My daughter used to wait until after 9pm to talk to her boyfriend because that's when her free cell phone minutes started. She dated a guy once whose cell phone number was long distance, and she racked up a giant bill talking to him, even though in reality, he was just a few miles away. She even had to ration her text messages because her plan only let her have a small number for free.
Some things have gotten worse instead of better. At my high school, the student government, all the clubs and sports teams were racially diverse. All of us Gen X kids had started school a couple of years into the integration era, escaping the last remnants of Jim Crow by a couple of years. I've been disappointed to see self-segregation become the norm in many areas. My younger cousin went to the same high school I did. By the time he got there, white kids had just about stopped playing on the football team. He was one of only three to even try out. I worked in education for 20 years and saw too many mono-cultured events take place. It's depressing.
There are so many little things too:
- Paying for everything with plastic. People used to scoff at you if you had a credit card purchase for only a dollar or two.
- Standard transmission cars used to be the cheap model, not the special order that they are today.
- Only upper middle-class people could afford a $700 VCR and the steep membership and deposits at the first video stores.
- Actors either made movies or they made TV show. The thought of Robert De Niro starring in a TV series was laughable. Now here we are.
- There used to be liberal Republicans (Nelson Rockefeller) and conservative Democrats (most of the southern ones). Today the GOP is batshit crazy and any Democrat who thinks people ought to have food, shelter, and medical care gets called a Commie.
What are your favorite examples of how things are different today?
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What To Do If You Get Arrested

I haven't been arrested in 39 years, I came close a couple of times during demonstrations against the war in Iraq, but some wise elders advised me to cooperate with pushy police officers to avoid it, so I did. Most of my run-ins with the law happened when I was a teenager and they all involved alcohol. The sober version oi me has been pretty good at staying away from the police. But, as Bob Dylan so aptly put it, the times, they are a changing.
I'm not sure whether it's paranoid to fear political persecution as a regular left wing American citizen or not. It's very evident that the current federal government will avoid due process whenever and however it can. Rounding up Venezuelan immigrants and flying them to EL Salvador against a judges orders should wake folks up. Then there are the legal residents who have excercised free speech in a way that pisses MAGA off. These people have not broken the law. They said words out loud in public. That's it. That's their offense. For that they've been imprisoned. That's the America that we are living in.
So, that's why I am reading up on how to handle myself if they come for me, or if I get pulled aside while traveling. I don't think I have it in me to just be quiet and go along with what's happening to my country.
- Do not be violent.
- Don't talk to the police
- Don't run
- Don't submit to warrantless searches
- Avoid asking for medical help
- Do not admit guilt
Know Your Rights | Protesters’ Rights | ACLU
What Happens If You Are Arrested For Protesting? - Criminal Appeals Advocates, P.C.
Here’s What to Do If You Get Detained at a U.S. Airport
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KeyKeeper Checks All the Boxes for Tracking Software Licenses
I've been working on getting all my software licensing information
into KeyKeeper, an
app by the same team that operates Bundlehunt. I've been buying Mac
software since the days of the classic OS. Believe it or not, some apps
I purchased as far back as 2004 are still functional, requiring the
original license ket when I set up a new system. Shout out to SuperDuper!
I've used various methods to track licensing information: a spreadsheet, Evernote, an email tag, Obsidian, the freeware app, Licensed All of them are functional enough, but when I saw the features in KeyKeeper, available for $4.99 in the current bundle, I decided to try it out.
KeyKeeper is security focused, requiring a password to enter the database. The design follows modern Mac conventions. There are all of the database fields you'd expect for this type of app, but you can add unlimited custom fields and file attachments, useful for screenshots and apps that have downloadable license keys. The fields for URLs are live, so if you need to visit a product website or redownload the app, you can do both right from KeyKeeper. A feature I like is the ability to create your won categories for your apps and make your own assignments. You can also create a favorites list. If you've been tracking your app purchases in a speadsheet, you can import the data into KeyKeeper and save yourself all the manual data entry. Once you have the data in KeyKeeper, you can export it into a spreadsheet as well. You can use Python to convert the exported spreadsheet into Markdown notes for Obsidian, if you think that would be helpful.
A single license for KeyKeeper is good for use on two Macs. The regular price is $11.99 if you miss the Bundlehunt special.
No, I'm Not in a Bubble

One of the unfortunate stories being written and rewritten lately is about how (wait for it), liberals/progressives/"the left" are in an information bubble because they've forsaken Twitter and canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post. Supposedly, people like me are out of touch with the majority of voters in the country because I choose not to consume news that's controlled by people with a vested interest in the success of MAGA — meaning Elon Musk, the Murdoch family, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and their billionaire cohort. Many of the ostensibly centrist journalists who fret about the poor misinformed leftists are actually just peeved that the social media following they labored to build on Twitter over the past decade has deserted them. It's just not fair. Besides, it would be a lot of work to start over somewhere else.
Needless to say, I think these people are full of shit. MAGA has been running the country for less than 100 days and already ABC, CBS, and Meta have settled frivolous lawsuits initiated by the US president rather than stand their ground in the face of his threats. A good part of my upbringing occurred while my step-father worked as a journalist. I have long supported and admired the underpaid and overworked people who bring us the news, but that feeling is ebbing in the modern era. The industry hasn't handled the way the country has been reshaped. It's still in the habit of framing arguments as if both sides have merit, even when one of those sides is batshit crazy, racist, misogynistic and incoherent. The word "sanewashing" had to be invented to describe what once respected outlets like the New York Times does to present Donald Trump as if he weren't a crazy person. Even Fox News cuts away from his live speeches to keep from showing the nonsensical, incoherent imbecile that he truly is.
Until lately, most Americans were in agreement that the Civil Rights Movement was a well managed and courageous era in American history. A non-violent crusade of moral righteousness prevailed over hatred and bigotry and racial hatred, murder, and bombings. What's not often discussed is how much disapproval people like MLK faced in their time. When Kind was killed, he was among the most-disliked men in the country. The majority of white people did not agree with the tactics of the Freedom Riders and those conducting sit-ins at lunch counters. In hindsight, we can see that the majority were wrong. The minority were right. The same holds true today. The hateful MAGA policies of 2025 are wrong. The belief of the minority in justice, a social safety net and equal rights is as morally righteous as it has always been.
I do not need to understand in great detail why straight conservatives want to turn back the clock on the LGBT community. I don't need an explanation or justification for mean-spirited immigration enforcement that now includes deportation and incarceration without a hearing, straight into a third world prison cell. I do not need some fancy-pants journo to explain the country I've lived in for the last six decades to me FFS.
What people who accuse the left of being in a bubble fail to consider is that we live in the same damn country they do. We see the same things they see. We pay the same prices at the grocery store. We fill out applications for the same jobs. I live in a purple state with a Democratic governor and attorney general who I admire as they try to protect me from the fire hose of WTF in Washington. There are millions and millions of us, and we know exactly what is happening without having to watch Fox News or have the paid employees of the billionaires break it down for us. We know how our neighbors feel. We hear them. We just think they're wrong.
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There Ought To Be a Law

You are probably familiar with Betteridge's Law of Headlines whether you know its name or not. The law is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It's a common sense analysis of a journalistic practice where publications seek to avoid being incorrect when they aren't certain about an outcome. Were they certain, the story they published on the topic would have been presented as a certainty.
Becoming familiar with the thinking behind Betteridge's Law is a good step on the road to media literacy.
Betteridge's Law of Headlines | Tools for Thinking
YSK the fundamentals of Betteridge's Law of Headlines
The Blog and Newsletter
Ian Betteridge is still around and still saying smart things. He's one of the more experienced tech journalists still plying the trade. His crtitiques of Apple, other journalists and the Internet writ large, are generally dead on and entertaining.
Ian Betteridge - Ian's Blog
One of the best newsletters I get each week is Ian's 10 Blue Links. The stories are generally topical and tech related. Ian point's out hypocrisy and industry bullshit with deadly accuracy.
Ten Blue Links, “good news, bad news, old news” edition
Follow Ian Betteridge on Mastodon
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iNet Network Scanner
For anyone with a home lab or who is invested in the Internet of
Things, the ability to scan your network is a tool that you want in your
management arsenal. Additionally, if you live in an urban environment,
being able to monitor the devices on your Wi-Fi network is important if
you suspect one of your neighbors might be attempting to access anything
they shouldn't.
iNet Network Scanner from BananaGlue GmbH is a particularly useful tool for anyone with a home network that's heavy on Apple devices. It's scanner can correctly identify laptops, desktops, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs and HomePods. It can also pick up other computers, tablets, thermostats, picture frames and similar devices.
Network Scanner
- Displays information for all devices powered on and connected to the network including their IP and MAC addresses.
- Customize the names of the devices in your network and assign them custom icons
- Set the IP range to be scanned or the interfaces to be scanned
- Export the scan results as an Excel (csv) or PDF file
- Connect to devices with different protocols from within the scanner (e.g., SMB or SSH)
Bonjour monitor
- Display of all running services (Bonjour) in real time (e.g. SMB. SSH, Media Sharing, VNC)
- Display of the services running on a specific device
- Display of detailed information about a service
- Selection of the active Bonjour domain
iNet Network Scanner also features wake on LAN controls to sleep, wake and restart compatible devices. For anyone still using an Apple Airport as a home Wi-Fi device, there are numerous monitoring features.
The app is available in the App Store for $24.99 as a one time purchase with lifetime upgrades.
Biltmore House
The largest private home ever constructed, the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. It’s a nice place to visit. I’ve cycled and kayaked on the estate. Good times.
The Audience Effect

This is the 52nd week of this blog's life. It doesn't seem like I've been doing this for almost 365 days, but I have. I think I may have missed a day in there somewhere, but i made up for it the next. In fact, I've posted 377 times since March 28, 2024. It's a good thing I'm not as talkative in real life as I once was, because evidently I can't shut up on the Internet. But, you know what? I think I'd rather write that many original blog posts than I would engage in some unfulfilling back and forth on social media arguing with someone who is never going to change their mind. That kind of exchange is like a Kabuki play where every line is predictable, as is the outcome. Somebody gets called a Nazi. Someone gets called a Commie. End of.
What I appreciate about blogging is the opportunity to be my consistently authentic self to the people interested enough to check in a regular or semi-regular basis. It makes me extremely happy when other people casually refer to Wonder Woman the same way that I do, or even better, when they are casual enough to shorten it to just WW. I dig getting teased that I outsource my blog to one of my many grandkids as the likely explanation for my proclivity to post so often. When I left mt job, the support and congratulations meant a lot to me. It felt personal.
I try to be the same kind of supportive reader for my blogging friends. It's just a matter of being interested and paying attention. That's always been my nature. I knew the names of my co-workers kids and whether their parents were still alive, what kind of dog they had and what their favorite TV show was. I with one guy for 20 years and I could answer every one of those questions about him and I doubt that he could have answered a single one of them about me or any of the other people on our team. He was a nice person, just uninterested in other people. Trust me, if you share pieces of your life on your blog, I am paying attention. I know who loves dachshunds, who has kids in college, whose partners have health issues and what kind of software you like the best.
I have a special tag in my email so that I can easily find letters from the people who have written me about the things I've posted, even the people who just have technical questions. I like providing technical help. It does not make me feel taken advantage of. I've had people write to me about some deeply personal topics, about quitting drinking and dealing with depression, about struggles at work and in their relationships. I consider it a real privilege to get a letter like that.
I have no idea how many people read Living Out Loud. Sure there are analytics and I look at those but I have a hard time translating those numbers into human beings. My favorite part of analytics is seeing that someone has posted a link back to something I've written. That's the best feeling. I try to repay the favor and promote my favorites in return. It's all part of being am IndieWeb blogger and member of a community of creative people who have chosen the same medium to share themselves with the world. It takes what it takes to get us all to where we are today. Hindsight is 20/20. I just wish I'd wasted a lot less energy on Facebook all those years when I could have beeb doing this instead. Of well.
If you've read enough posts on this blog to know me a little, I appreciate you. I'm a fortunate man.
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UTM for Virtualization
I recently converted my Windows laptop to Ubuntu. I don't rely on
Windows for anything personally any longer so I didn't need a dedicated
machine for that OS. However, as the extended family tech support guy,
there are occasions when I need to use Windows 10 and Windows 11 to
troubleshoot issues for my relatives who have yet to see the light and
buy a Mac. I relied on Oracle's free VirtualBox for a long time to
build VMs and I've had licensed copies of Parallels
through work off and on through the years. It's a good product, but not
worth the price just for occasional use.
My current choice for running Windows in a VM on a Mac is UTM. It's free and allows you to run an Intel based version of Windows on an M series Mac. It's slow and inefficient, not something you want to use every day, but for testing and troubleshooting, it's fine. You can't game with a UTM virtual machine. UTM does not currently support GPU emulation/virtualization on Windows and therefore lacks support for 3D acceleration (e.g. OpenGL and DirectX). If you need a Windows license, you can get one at Stack Socialfor $15.
There is a gallery of prebuilt VMson the UTM site.
Windows
- Windows 11
- Windows 10
- Windows 7
- Windows XP
Linux (multiple version of each distro)
- Arch
- Debian
- Fedora
- Kali
- Ubuntu
My choice for creating and running Mac VMs is Virtual Buddy. You can choose a Mac release (including betas) from a long list ranging from macOS 13.3 all the way to macOS 15.1 RC1. If you have a URL for another IPSW or an IPSW you have already downloaded, you can use them as well.
Favorite Funny People

I thought about doing stand up comedy for a while. I never did it, but I thouight anout it. While I was in that thinking mindset, I decided to study some of the greats to see if I could get some insights. I decided to start with Lenny Bruce. I'd never actually heard him perform. I was only familiar with his legend. He was recognized as warrior for free speech. He was arrested more than once and at his landmark 1964 New York trial, defended by Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Jules Feiffer, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and James Baldwin. I was eager hear his comedy.
It was disappointing. It was too topical. Lacking detailed familiarity with the news events of the day, I wasn't able to tie the jokes together. The same thing happened when I got my youngest daighter to watch reruns of In Living Color, a show I remembered as being hilarious. When we watched it together, it was full of jokes anout Barbara Bush's hair and Mike Tyson's legal woes. My daughter had no idea what they were talkinga about and soon grew bored.
So, my theory on the best comedians is that they are the ones who speak to the human condition. Their work is timeless. It's just as funny 40 and 50 years later as it was when it was first recorded. Here are some examples.
Richard Pryor
George Carlin
Mitch Hedberg
Bill Hicks
How I Met Wonder Woman

The years 2009-2012 were the peak of my endurance cycling career. I've ridden since then, but never with the same laser focused dedication to absolutely piling the miles on. During those years, I seldom missed dedicating both weekend days to riding solo or with my cycling club, or both. From mid-February until the first week of November, I also rode three or four days after work in progressively longer distances as the days grew longer. In 2011, I averaged 30 miles a day for the entire year, accumulating nearly 11K miles on my bike. It was loads of fun, although a bit obsessive and selfish. Balance is better, but that is a lecture for another time.
On Veterans Day (November 11th in the US), It was my habit to organize a 100-mile ride since many members of the local cycling community are military connected and most folks get the day off. I'd make announcements at group rides for a couple of weeks, post it to our website and make a flier to hang at the local bike shop.. The typical attendance at one of these rides would be about 20 people. There was no fee. Riders were expected to bring their supplies and money to refuel at convenience stores. We didn't have any organized support. If someone's bike broke down, or if they were unable to continue due to fatigue or injury, we'd figure something out. Someone's spouse would get a phone call and some vague directions is what I'm saying. That rarely happened, though. People were pretty good at not overestimating their abilities and if someone started having a bad day, usually someone would volunteer to ride with them at a slower pace so they could finish the ride. It wasn't a race or a competition.
Although there's always a rotating cast of characters in a transient community like ours, I generally knew everyone in the club. We also had plenty of people who were in the local triathlon club who rode and trained with us. Some of them I only knew by reputation. One of them I'd seen on social media. My online observations informed me that she was a partner in big accounting firm, took European vacations and had been a young parent like me. She was one of the founders of the triathlon club and a current officer. She'd been one of the first people in the area to complete a competitive Ironman triathlon, meaning that she went to race, not just to finish. Likewise, she had a reputation for being supremely fit and very competitive.
- Swim: 2.4 miles (3.86 kilometers)
- Bike: 112 miles (180.25 kilometers)
- Run: 26.2 miles (42.20 kilometers, a full marathon)
As was my habit, I was early to the ride. When I got there, a car I didn't recognize was in the parking lot and a diminutive lady in cycling kit was pumping up the tires on her carbon fiber road bike. It was her, the triathlon woman. I went over and introduced myself, Johnny Cask style—"Hello, I'm Lou Plummer." Although there were no other men in the community named Lou, most people called me by my full name for some reason, so that's what I used when I met new folks. I asked her if her name was Carol, mentioning offhandedly that I'd seen her on social media. I did not want to give off stalker vibes.
I'll be honest. She fascinated me. How could someone that small and compact be so damn powerful? Plus she, like me, had several grandchildren. With all the pit stops and a mid-ride meal, the riders made a full day of it. I spent a good portion of the time chatting with my new friend, riding beside her in a double pace line and taking my turns at the front of the group at her side. Since I was also the ride organizer and thus the de facto leader, I also had to shout out directions for every turn and keep tabs on all the riders, especially the ones attempting the 100-mile distance for the first time.
I'd picked out a well-know local burger joint as our lunch stop. She and I sat together. It was only later that I discovered that she didn't eat bread or cookies because of dietary restrictions. After all was said and done at the end of the day, I knew that I wanted to be friends with this lady. She and I felt the same way about training and health. We had similar priorities, and we liked riding our bikes for really, really long distances. Over the next four months, we rode together every chance we had, including one epic holiday weekend where we accumulated almost 300 miles together along with an Army friend of ours.
I was a very social, very talkative, outwardly enthusiastic guy. She was generally quiet, reserved and tended to look at me oddly whenever I'd crack one too many jokes. That would cause me to shut up for about 30 seconds — her plan, I guess. A lot of endurance sports can involve what is known as type two fun. That's an activity that is only enjoyable after the fact. While participating in type two fun, people tend to suffer. We had some of that, riding in winds that were so brutal that neither of us could go faster than 10mph, when under ideal conditions we could maintain 20mph for hours on end. I was a large guy for a cyclist. I outweighed the heaviest professionals by a good 30 pounds. I do not like to climb hills, not on a bike, not on foot, not in any fashion. As I have mentioned, she is small and in possession of phenomenal athletic ability. She got to be excellent at patiently waiting for me whenever we faced elevation changes.
Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. One hundred and twelve days after our first ride, I confessed to her that my feelings for her had grown into something more than just those one has for a riding buddy. Well, come to find out, she felt the same way. Within a week, we became partners and have been together ever since. I still hate to climb hills.
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Koofr - European Based Cloud Storage Provider with a Generous Free Tier
I am in the process of de-Googling. I already moved my email to Fastmail. I
changed my default search engine to Kagi.
I am moving my photographs to Ente.
Today, I took advantage of an ongoing
sale at Stack Social to purchase a lifetime deal on 1 TB of cloud
storage with the Slovenian company, Koofr For $120. I've been paying a monthly
fee for cloud storage for more than 10 years and I'm delighted that is
coming to an end. My de-Googling project is based more on my desire to
preserve my privacy and protect myself from the US government, but I'm
happy to save a few bucks while doing it. For anyone who wants to try
out Koofr, they offer a 10GB account for free. If you just want an
offshore place to store documents, that is a healthy amount of storage,
but not enough if you are looking to have a safe place for photos, music
and larger backups. You can also subscribe to Koofr monthly with plans
starting at a trifling €.5 a month, going up in increments for an
additional 10, 25, 100, and 250 GBs before getting to TB and greater
options.
The Mac client for Koofr allows you to set up access to your storage as if it were a network drive. Koofr also sets up a folder in your home directory that is synced with its cloud servers. I like this much better than the default location in the ~/Library/Cloud Storage folder used by Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.com. You can add additional folders to sync with the cloud, something I typically do with my default downloads folder so that I can easily share those files between devices. If you have Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive accounts, you can mount those providers inside of your Koofr vault, something I'm taking advantage of while I work on moving the files I want to secure over to European based storage, protected by European privacy laws which are much stricter than in the US. Koofr's search function will search the files on each of those services as well as itself. The Koofr app also allows me to set up local file sharing between computers on my home network where the data never goes to a could service, it's just a convenient feature to share data between devices.
I was also able to set up Koofr easily in my iOS file manager, FileBrowserPro, using WebDAV.
There is a Koofr client for iOS, Windows and Linux if you use those platforms.
Even free accounts can use use Koofr Vault for extra strong protection. Open source, client-side, zero-knowledge encrypted storage application by Koofr.
There are even more features than I have covered for collaboration, file recovery, data migration from Meta platforms, an image editor, duplicate file detection, drive space management and more.
This Week's Bookmarks - Surviving 2025, Automation, Reprogramming Culture, Autism, Bike Route Planning, Kahneman Suicide, Locomotive Lit

Do One Thing | dansinker.com - We are living through a period of protracted awfulness, and the end is not coming anytime soon. Those in power would like nothing more than to keep you exhausted and impotent, incapable of getting anything done (especially the things that will undermine their power). So do one thing.
11 Ways to Automate Your Life (and Get Back More Free Time) | Lifehacker - Use your one wild and precious life for stuff you actually want to do.
The Anti-DEI Agenda Is Reprogramming America | WIRED - President Trump's anti-DEI playbook doesn't just affect the makeup of America's workplaces. It also impacts cultural production.
Opinion | Sorry, R.F.K.: There Is No Autism Mystery - The New York Times - I Was Diagnosed With Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising.
VeloPlanner - From EuroVelo to national cycling networks, VeloPlanner puts the world's official, signposted routes in one place. Download GPX files, access detailed route information, and plan your next ride with confidence.
The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions | wsj.com - ## Shortly before Daniel Kahneman died last March, he emailed friends a message: He was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland. Some are still struggling with his choice.
Literary Locomotives: Nine Books Set on Trains That Show How They Changed the World ‹ Literary Hub - Why set a novel on a train? The answer might seem obvious: it’s a narratively and atmospherically rich space, an enclosure in which strangers are cooped up, each with their own different reason for making the journey.
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Should Have Saeved This for Window Friday
Thankfully, the back roads still have a plentiful supply of old farm houses to provide for my photographic needs.
Just Relax

I think I have reached the stage where i no longer have to do anything to relax. It's become status quo for me. I rarely have to deal with anyone who brings tension to my life these days. If someone starts to do that, I can easily elect to find an alternative source of humanity. Luckily, I'm not related to anyone who stresses me out. I generally wake up in a good mood and wait for the day to get even better.
The pre-dawn hours are some of the best of any day. It's quiet. Coffee tastes better than than it does at any other time. I can spend a leisurely amount of time going through the ritual I've developed. The first thing I do is open my journal and do a quick once-over of the stuff that gets automatically imported there. Then I review "on this day." I've been using the same app, Day One, for 11 years, so I have plenty to look back over. Today's interesting entries were from 2020 when I wrote quite a bot about how weird it was during the early days of the pandemic, when grocery store shelves were empty and people were panic buying. After my journal, I move on to do the same thing with my photographs, which are liberally sprinkled with photos of my grandkids at all different ages. Only after doing all that, do I take a look at the daily fire hose of WTF, also known as the headlines. As horrible as things are, I am doing a good job of depersonalizing it.
I'm a believer in creating happy spaces. My little home office is pleasantly lit. Everything is suitably comfortable. I can listen to music if I feel like it or watch something, which I rarely do, but can if it suits me. I always have a tasty beverage on hand. I may have to work on making my workspace a little less relaxing because taking a nap with my laptop has become a new pastime. How delightful to be able to just surrender to every urge to get 40 winks. I keep meaning to start using an essential oil diffuser that I used to keep running all the time for just a little more feng shui.
I have a great view from my window. I'll be moving my bird feeders to where I can see them better. My house borders on a stretch of woodlands. My neighborhood was built in the 60s, and we have many established, mature trees around. I see all kinds of wildlife, from squirrels, to rabbits, raccoons, and opossums, as well as a long list of birds: cardinals, wrens, house finches, titmice, blue jays, catbirds, chickadees, goldfinches, owls, red tail hawks, crows, sparrows, robins, orioles and more.
During my earlier years, I didn't always have the money to have a smoothly working climate control system. I spent too may years relying on expensive space heaters and window units. Not now buddy. I can adjust the temperature to whatever I want right from my phone or computer. It's such a luxury. My high school years were spent in a 100-year-old farmhouse with no air conditioning and heat from a wood stove. I survived just fine, but, man, I love these new fangled devices.
My days are spent now working on projects that interest me. I read what I want to read. My biggest energy consumption is finding ways to be creative, not trying to calm people frustrated by technology that isn't acting as it should. I haven't had to reset anyone's password in over a month. A professional lifetime where every day was a confrontation with things that didn't work has been supplanted by my lovingly tended little home tech environment where just about everything that happens to predictable and expected. That's the life for me.
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The Boss

When I am laying on my deathbed, counting my regrets, one of them will be that I didn't go see Bruce Springsteen in the 80s or 90s. By the time the 21st century rolled around, I was done with concerts for big names. There just isn't any way I'm going to pay a hundred dollars an hour to be entertained. That doesn't take away from my enjoyment of music. I'm glad that Bruce and other senior citizens like Sir Paul McCartney are still performing live for the people who want to see them and don't mind parting with the dough.
I started listening to Springsteen when I was 14, in 1979 when he released the double-album, The River, still one of my favorites. A couple of years later when Nebraska came out, I became a fan for life. That sparse record, recorded on a four-track machine in Springsteen;s basement is my nomination for the perfect album in the canon.
My respect and admiration for The Boss comes from a variety of elements. I think he is a master of the English language, a people's poet if there ever was one. He was not, as he was once labeled, the next Dylan. He was just the first Bruce. Those songs from The River and Nebraska carried me into adulthood in the very spirit of the late 70s and early 80s. Springsteen's musical knowledge ad skill, coupled with his respect for people like Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger, mean a lot to me. His admiration of those men speaks to his values and mine.
I don't think he's perfect, by any means. He's made mistakes. His first marriage was rocky. He didn't always treat the guys in his band with the respect they deserve. By his own admission, he has a pretty outsized ego, but JFC, so would I if I were Bruce Springsteen. As artists go, he's just someone who makes music that speaks to me and has for decades.
The Perfect Album | Living Out Loud
Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by Warren Zanes | Goodreads
Born to Run (autobiography) - Wikipedia
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Zotero as a Free PDF Library Manager
I recently crowd-sourced ideas for a better way to catalog,
annotate and search my collected PDFs, mainly software and hardware user
manuals with a few odds and ends thrown in. The top suggestions were:
- Zotero - the app I chose
- DevonThink - expensive when all I want is PDF searches
- Eagle Filer - what I've been using, but I want something that is native to Apple silicon, works on IOS and is lightweight as a way to search PDFs only
- Paperless-ngx - Interesting, but requires Docker
- Obsidia - not suitable because the plugin required for text searched creates too many support files
Zotero
I chose Zotero, because it's free, lightweight and offers an iOS app using the same data. Zotero can import multiple files at once. It has built in tools for highlighting and making annotations to PDFs. There are numerous plugins available, including:
- AutoIndex - Keeps the full-text index updated. Beta release. If you have ZotFile installed, Auto-index will also kick off auto-extraction of notes.
- PDF Translate - Provides PDF translation for the built-in PDF reader in Zotero
- PDF Preview - Preview Zotero attachments in the library view.
- Zutilo - Adds additional editing functions and exposes Zotero functions for keyboard shortcuts
Zotero is designed to to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, something for which I have little use. I can however use its browser import tools and added ability to add epub and HTMS archives to my research library. It is compatible with SingleFile, an open-source project for saving HTML archives of web pages. Zotero allows you to attach notes to PDFs, retrieve their metadata and other tasks. You can organize PDFs in folders and collections. The Zotero website provides extensive information, including instructional screencasts, troubleshooting tips, a list of known issues, and user forums.
World's Best Granddad

The title of this blog post is aspirational. One of my goals in life is to make up for my shortcomings as a father by being the best grandfather I can be. I also tried to be the best Dad I could be, but I feel more prepared at this stage in my life to succeed than I did in my younger days. One of the primary benefits of having been a teenage parent was the head start it gave me on becoming a grandfather. The oldest of my grandchildren will turn 20 this year, while the youngest two are just in kindergarten. There are 13 of them all together. It plays hell at Christmastime, not that I do much of the shopping. Wonder Woman handles that. About all I do is bring the packages in from the porch and accept hugs from the kiddos after they open them.
I've got several of the kids on my mind today. I've been assembling the gear for a weekend camping trip with five of them, ranging from five-year old Evie to 14-year-old Aiden. Despite the threat of a cold night on Saturday, we have gathered our tents, sleeping bags, flashlights and cooking gear to head for Jones Lake State Park for the weekend. I've gotten everyone's favorite camping food, s'mores fixings and a massive charger for all their electronics. Harper, my aspiring TikTok superstar, will surely be making videos while hanging out with her cousins in the woods. Wonder Woman will be in charge, of course. We got them all fishing poles last fall, so that's definitely going to be on their itinerary.
My other kindergarten grandchild is James. He lives a couple of hours away. He's eight years younger than his sister. He'd been with the same group of kids in pre-school for several years but unfortunately, none of them ended up going to the same elementary school he attends. It threw him for a loop and this hasn't been an easy year for him because of it. It really breaks my heart to see him struggling with the social aspect of the school experience so early. He's a bright boy, so the academic part of the experience is going OK, I just want him to make some friends to enrich the experience. Thankfully, his folks aren't planning on moving, so he will have the stability to get to know his classmates as time goes on.
One of my other grandsons, Connor, is a high-school junior. He has an illness called Friedreich's Ataxia that affects his mobility. He drives a car with hand controls and uses a motorized wheelchair at school. Furthermore, he can walk some, but his illness makes it difficult. With the destruction of the Department of Education by the fascists in Washington, coupled with the undercover attack on the disabled as part of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, we do not know what is going to happen to the services he gets. To make it all even more infuriating, his Dad, our son-in-law, is a 100% disabled vet from injuries sustained in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. We don't know what's going to happen with his Veteran's Administration healthcare and services, either. My anger at the Republicans who wave flags and enable this bullshit is very, very personal. Whatever happens, Wonder Woman and I will be there for them.
I'm glad I have all of these people to love. I may not be the world's best Granddad yet, but I will continue to work toward being that man.
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Permissions Reset 2 - Free Troubleshooting Tool
One of the first steps in troubleshooting a misbehaving Mac for
many years has been to repair the disk permissions, currently a feature
of Disk First Aid, accessed through Disk Utility or the terminal if you
are savvy. That can be a bit of overkill if you are primarily concerned
with a single file, folder or app, though. it's time consuming and
affects your entire drive.
If you have files, folders or apps that cannot be opened or files that refuse to have changes saved to them, there is a free tool that can quickly solve the issue if it is permission related. Permissions Reset 2 from Taiwanese developers Ohanaware can reset the owner, group, access permissions, Access Control Lists (ACLS), Extended Attributes (including Quarantine) to default settings, simply by dragging an app, folder or file into Permissions Reset, selecting what you'd like reset, then clicking on "Reset".
The app requires macOS 10.13 or newer and is compatible with Sequoia, although it has not been updated since 2021. . If you are familiar with the binary and reversible nature of disk permissions, this shouldn't give you pause. It isn't Apple Silicon native, so if you don't want to use Rosetta, then this isn't for you. If you get anxiety if your apps aren't updated every 15 minutes, then this probably isn't for you either.
You can download the app from the developer's website.
My Current Online Hangouts

These are the places I go online to interact with other folks. If you are not familiar with any of these places, maybe you can check them out.
My Mastodon Server
I am a big fan on the community at OMG.LOL and its Mastodon server, Social.lol, which requires that you have an OMG.LOL account. There is also a Discord community and a Signal group.
Discord
I am a member of several communities on Discord My favorites are : Obsidian.md, OMG.LOL, MacApps,
AppRaven
AppRaven is a community based around the iOS app of the same name. It's for people who like to discover new Mac and iOS apps,
Forums
I have a tom of forum accounts, mostly for software. The most helpful are Obsidian, Drafts, Keyboard Maestro
My favorite communities on Reddit are r/MacApps, r/ObsidianMD and r/MacOS
BearBlog Discover
A great place to get to know bloggers is on BearBlog's Discover Page.
Scribbles
The new posts on the Scribbles platform are on the Explore Page
Micro.Blog
Did you know that you can get an account at Micro.blog for $1 month?
Others
I’m on Bluesky if you want to hook up there. I’m also on Pixelfed. Let’s Connect
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Setapp Goodness and Tips
Setapp
is an app subscription service ($9.99 a month) owned by the Ukrainian
company Macpaw. It has approximately 1 million subscribers, which is a
good testament to its usefulness. Here are some of the things I've
learned in a year and half of being a customer.
Unfortunately, Macpaw is a frequent target of Russian trolls because of the ongoing war between the two countries. Macpaw also makes the utility suite, CleanMyMac, which some people confuse with an older Mac malware program, MacKeeper. The two are not related. If you read the tech press, you'll see good reviews of Setapp. If you rely on Reddit or anonymous online sources, you are likely to run into those pesky Russians I mentioned.
I get tremendous value from my Setapp subscription. The numbers fluctuate a bit, but I currently have 42 apps from the service installed. More than a dozen of those apps are login items that are always running on my Mac. Obviously, they play a vital part in my workflow.
Anyone can try Setapp and all of its app for free for seven days, however if you use my referral link and code PLUMMER you will get 30 days free instead of seven. Also if you are a student, you are eligible for Setapp at 50% off. And, finally, anyone who pays by the year gets a 10% discount.
One tip I can offer is to get your own API key from Open.AI for use with AI apps like Typing Mind or Elephas. It is much cheaper. In a year of constantly using my API with multiple apps, I've spent $15.
If you have any apps from Setapp that you have already purchased, consider using the Setapp version while you have a subscription since it adds to the money that the developer make. It's just a nice thing to do. Brett Terpstra wrote a script and an automator workflow that will tell you if any of the apps on your computer are also on Setapp.
One last thing - I tried the iOS add-on and didn't get that much from it. I do have the add-on to run the apps on a second machine though. It doesn't add that much and it comes in handy.
Here's a List of the Login Apps I Use
- PopClip - A Must Have Productivity App | AppAddict
- Bartender - Still Best in Class | AppAddict
- AlDente Pro - Charge Limiter | AppAddict
- 24 Hour Wallpaper from Jetson Creative | AppAddict
- Better Touch Tool Favorites | AppAddict
- CleanShot X | AppAddict
- Clop - Copy Big, Paste Small, Send Fast | AppAddict
- Dato - A Full Featured Menu Bar Calendar | AppAddict
- Default Folder X an OG App For Mac Power Users | AppAddict
- Disk Drill Revisited - Recovering 87K Files | AppAddict
- Dropzone 4 - A Little Pricey But Versatile | AppAddict
- QuitAll - Amico Apps
- Start from Innovative Bytes | AppAddict
Other Setapp Offerings I Have Reviewed
- Permute - Powerful, Easy to Use Media Converter for Images, Video and Audio | AppAddict
- TripMode - Data Usage Monitor and Control | AppAddict
- Downie - Video Downloader | AppAddict
- Trickster - Manage Your Files Like a Pro | AppAddict
- TextSniper | AppAddict
- Unclutter - Clipboard Manager, File Shelf, Floating Notes - All in One | AppAddict
- MarsEdit - Making Blogging Easier | AppAddict
- SnapMotion - High Quality Image Captures from Video, Made Easy | AppAddict
- Presentify - An App for the Future | AppAddict
- Elephas Did What Others Wouldn't | AppAddict
- Keysmith - Record Automation Macros With Ease | AppAddict
- Noizio - A Background Sound App for Mac | AppAddict
- Widget Wall | AppAddict
- Almighty - Tweaking and Utility Collection | AppAddict
- Paletro - Add a Command Palette to Any App | AppAddict
- Unite 5 and Coherence X 4 - Site Specific Browsers | AppAddict
- An Unemotional Look at Clean My Mac X | AppAddict
- Plus AI from MacPlus - A Convenient and Well Though Out App | AppAddict
- Pie Menu | AppAddict
- Pathfinder by Cocoatech | AppAddict
Full list of apps on Setapp, listed by popularity
Me, the Digital Packrat

When I bought my first computer in 1993, an IBM PS1 Consultant, 486/33SX, it had a 140 MB hard drive. I kept the computer for three years, and although I added a CD-ROM, sound card and extra RAM, I never increased the amount of storage. A quick check of the computer I use today, an M2 MacBook Air reveals that I have 78 apps that take up more storage by themselves than I had available on that first computer. My camera, a Canon 6D takes photos so large that six of them would have filled the hard drive of that first computer.
I still have documents I created on that machine. In fact, I have a great many things I wrote and preserved from the 1990s, including digital photos from the expensive Kodak camera that belonged to my job. Many of the documents were written in Microsoft Works, a productivity suite it stopped selling 16 years ago. There was never a Mac version of it. At some point, I had to jump through some hoops to recover the information from those files using a document interpreter. These days, I save everything I write as plain text so that I don't ever face that problem again. I did not save everything I wrote from that era, but I was able to use The Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive to recover numerous web pages from my first blog.
When Napster was popular, you could download almost any song you could think of just by searching for it. I accumulated all 500 of the Rolling Stones top albums that way. While I was still living that pirate life, a short time actually, I also collected the full discographies of several prolific artists and groups and that's why I have 25+ albums (each) by Neil Young, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan.
In setting up my new home office recently, I rounded up the embarrassingly large collection of hard drives I'd accumulated over the years: 7 portable 1 TB drives, 2 portable 2 TB drives, 2 powered external 1 TB drives, 5 internal 1 TB drives and 2 powered external 3 TB hard drives. That's 24 TB of storage added to the 5 TB that I have available on the computers I use daily. The drives contained various collections of software, photos, music, podcasts, movies, TV shows, hard drive back-ups and documents collected over the past 30+ years.
I recently added over a thousand more files to keep up with when I downloaded our entire Amazon Kindle and Audible collections. We had over 500 books in each of those. My challenge is to consolidate all of that information, removing duplicates as I go along. My goal is to have a local copy, a copy kept offsite but readily available and a copy in the cloud. A lot of this information is only important to me. My kids will probably preserve the photos and may avail themselves of some music, but who will want an archive of decades of my writing? If you ask them, they'd most likely says yes, but it is a lot of work to maintain so many files and like all 21st century people, their collections of digital data are growing too.
My decision to create a home lab made things even more complicated since now I have three computers to maintain and a fluctuating number of virtual machines. This means I have a half dozen large USB thumb drives with operating system installations on them. Yay! More data! Having high-speed Internet also allows me to suck information off the internet at an outrageous rate. I can download dozens of GB of data in a morning if I feel like it, and of course, I often feel like it. I don't know for sure, but I suspect there may be a diagnosis associated with my personality type.
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Manhattan Graffiti
Street photographer, Jay Maisel, owned the famous 190 Bowery building, a six-story, 72-room building in Manhattan to which the sticker was affixed. He lived and worked there for several decades before selling it in 2015.
Expanding My Horizons

Every so often in my adult life, I find a new passion. I'm not happy until I master it or come as close as I can. I've done it over a wide array of activities, cycling, photography, long-distance hiking, political activism and now blogging, I suppose. Based on all that, I know I have the capacity to learn new things. I am still curious. There are some areas of my life, where I'm not sure how to incorporate new things. The arts are a good example of this. I do not remember the last time I listened to an album by someone with whom I wasn't familiar. I used to get new music all the time but these days I am very much my own classic rock radio station. I'd like to discover some rabbit hole of a TV series to dive into. I'm in a rut of moving from one Netflix or Max new release to another one (with some Britbox thrown in). I have so much time now but I'm at a loss for ways to find new things. Time to do some research.
7 Ways To Expand Your Horizon And Push For New Frontiers - LifeHack
Top Recommended Websites To Discover New Music In 2025
6 Easy Ways to Find the Streaming Movies and Shows You Want to Watch | PCMag
17 Ways To Find Good Books To Read - Cushing-Malloy
Too Many Places: Overcoming the Paradox of Choice
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Apps for Photo Archiving Workflow
I'm in the process of removing my data from most of the big US
based tech companies in favor or smaller, more privacy focused
companies. I do not want my files to be subject to US government
subpoenas or other invasive security threats from which Google, Amazon,
Meta or Microsoft can profit. I've downloaded my photo backups from
Amazon and Google, made local backups and set up a self hosted photo
server. I will also be using Ente, a data
storage provider using E2E open-source software.
When downloading my stored photos, I am dealing with cell phone photos, scanned images, DSLR photos and downloaded Internet images. The files from cell phones and cameras contain EXIF data. The scans and Internet files do not. To set the file creation date to match the EXIF data, I used A Better Finder Attributes. by PublicSpaces.
To rename the files so that they file name matches or contains the date the photo was taken, I am using Transnomino, a free file renaming utility that offers renaming based on factors as simple as text replacement to complex replacements based on regular expressions and text-based file attributes.
For dealing with large amounts of zipped archives, I'm using Better Zip because of it's feature that allows you to save workflows that unarchive the files in a variety of locations. It also deals with archive errors better than other utilities that aren't really designed for queued files operations. Better Zip also provides a Quicklook plugin that allows me to see the contents of archives without having to open them.
To sort the files (there are over 100,000), I'm using Hazel which is easily able to separate the videos from the still images. It then moves the files based on the creation date to a folder named for the month and year the image was captured. If the folder does not exist, it creates it.
To move and copy the huge volume of files I'm dealing with, I am using RsyncUI, a graphical front end for the powerful CLI program, rsync.
To view the local files on my Mac, I am definitely NOT using Apple Photos. Right now I am using the free app, XnViewMP, but I am preparing to set up Musebox a one-time purchase app ($15). with capabilities similar to Lightoom.
Who Are Your People?

One thing I learned prior to traveling to Ireland is that the people of that country grow really and truly tired of Americans (meaning people who were born and raised in the United States) coming over to the Emerald Isle and proclaiming themselves to be Irish because one of their 32 great-great-great-great grandfathers was from County Cork. I made it very clear to any of the Irish people I spoke to that I was not one of "those" Americans. One fellow couldn't believe that I wasn't trying to claim to be his long lost cousin. I explained that my grandmother was of Scottish descent. He asked me her family name. "McFadyen," I told him. He assumed a triumphant look and led me to a monument located right beside the famous Free Derry wall. The monument was to a man whose last name was, you guessed it, McFadyen. He told me that I might not claim Ireland but that Ireland would claim me.
Honestly, I don't really care that much where any of my long dead relatives came from in the sense that i just can't identify with national pride. It's seldom a good thing is it? It leads to nationalism and feelings and acts of unearned and undeserved superiority. I'm fine with other folks who feel some sort of spiritual kinship with the home of their ancestors, as long as they aren't obnoxious about it. Just don't tell me that you know you'd be good at bullfighting because you have Spanish blood or any kind crap like that.
As a general rule, most cultures have two sides. For every selfless act of sacrifice, there tends to be a corresponding act of something horrible. Even the Irish, a people I hold in high esteem for persevering under years of exploitive English colonialism, seldom talk about their Nazi sympathies. Wait, what? Well, after Irish independence, certain folks decided that any enemy of England was a friend of Ireland and well, that kind of led to a certain acceptance of Germany that was most underserved. Read about it in the Irish Times
The heroic American Army of World War Two had soldiers stationed in America guarding their fellow citizens in Japanese Internment Camps. That doesn't take away anything from the men who landed on Omaha Beach, it just solidifies the fact that it's a very grey world, no matter how black and white we wish it could be.
For my fellow pale skinned brethren, expressing something as warped as racial pride is just weird AF to me. Thankfully, the tendency of white people to express that notion was on the decline prior to the last election, although it seems to be making a comeback. I can see where traditionally oppressed people have a sense of "Yay! We survived!" but I'm not sure what their genocidal oppressors have to celebrate. Don't even come at me with an "But not all white people" argument either.
I am much more inclined to identify with my self-chosen tribe of freedom fighters. I celebrate my people based on what they did and not on geography or the amount of melanin in their skin or the shape of their eyes. Our real families are the people we choose and not the blood in our veins. My people were the abolitionists, the Freedom Riders, the IWW and the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. My people were Susan B. Anthony, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Korematsu and Sitting Bull. My people started Occupy Wall Street and rioted in the streets of Seattle. They were gunned down at Kent State by the Ohio NationalGuard and in a Greensboro housing project by the KKK. My people are finding ways to resist the tide of fascism right this red hot minute.
If you feel the same way, then you are my sister or my brother. I love you.
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The Racial Construct

If you haven't noticed the US government's full court press to assert the supremacy of whiteness in this country, you're probably white and conservative. The whole MAGA movement is predicated about returning to a time when white people reigned supreme over the cultural and economic realms of the country.
I find the whole concept of race to be an artificial construct, useful only to a dominant group who wants to draw lines between themselves and others, mostly to keep the others from assuming any privilege or availing themselves of perceived scarce resources. The whole notion of whiteness is fluid. There was a time when Irish and Italians were not considered white. Plenty of mouth-breathers still consider anyone who is Jewish to be ineligible for whiteness, the same with other Semitic people and for Spanish speakers.
If you spend more than thirty seconds thinking about race, it starts to become evident that it's only purpose is to keep people separate. One of the favorite beliefs among the Silicon Valley eugenics fans is the supposed differences in the IQ among the races. Guess who they believe to be #1.
Spend a little time looking at the arguments against using race to draw lines.
How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev | Goodreads
Eugenics Isn’t Dead—It’s Thriving in Tech – Mother Jones
Race Is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue | Scientific American
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Fmail2 for Fastmail
After using Gmail for twenty years, I recently decided to move to
a more privacy focused provider I could use with my own domain. I've
finally reached the tipping point with surrendering my data to big tech
in exchange for free services.
I chose Fastmail as my new provider. Fastmail works with just about any email client available. I don't need or want AI capabilities, nor do I have any complicated workflows for email. I use my account purely for personal communications and as a repository for subscriptions. It doesn't make sense for me to use a paid or subscription app for those basic needs, so I opted for a free Fastmail client, Fmail2. This tiny app (8MB) replicates the excellent Fastmail web client and adds a number of features.
- Multiple window support
- Default email client
- Running in the background
- Auto hide
- Tabs
- Dock item with badge
- Swipe support
- Secure
- Notifications
- Status bar menu
- Keyboard shortcuts
There were several reasons I chose Fastmail from among other options.
- Import of mail, calendar, notes, contacts and filters from Gmail
- Label support (folders are also an option)
- Robust SPAM filters
- 50GB of storage - 20 years of Gmail only used 8GB, so I think I'll be fine with 50GB on Fastmail
- Unlimited alias addresses
- Unlimited masked email addresses
- Ongoing import of Gmail
- Discount for family plan
Fmail2 is a 100% Swift app and runs natively on apple silicon. The developer is Arie van Boxel, who is also behind the excellent Startup Manager app.
I Need an Analogy for the Internet

Sometimes being online is absolutely like panning for gold. I can be perusing one of the blogging platforms I frequent and discover the most heart touching essay by someone i've never encountered before. They could be writing about anything, a relationship, or work or just anything about surviving life in 2025. When I find someone like that, it brightens my day and gives me something to look forward to. I felt that way when I found Keenan and Annie.
There are times when even a well done commercial site providing high-quality content is a joy to spend time on there. The Atlantic or The Verge or Wired on a good day are prime examples. I happen to like and respect quite a few journalists. Some of them are doing some absolutely vital work for our democracy right now, and i appreciate it. I also like the tech nerds, who I can tell are just as excited to find an interesting new tool as I would be in their shoes. After all these years, I still think computers can be fun. I'm not jaded yet.
But.
But then... I log on to Mastodon or Bluesky and I see a message in my inbox, not from some software curious Mac fan, but from an incredibly attractive woman, appearing younger than my adult kids, who is just dying to find out how I'm doing tonight. Sigh. It only takes a minute to block and delete those kind of scam messages. They are such downers, though. There's some lonely guy out there, maybe someone who isn't as sharp mentally as they once were who is going to fall for that kind of thing tonight. He will get taken to the cleaners and have his heart broken. I don't like the constant reminders of that reality.
Other times, I'm just doing my thing, minding my own business and I get a text message, which is cool if it is a friend or our kids or grandkids. What's not cool is when it's someone from the political party I don't support crowing about the latest MAGA atrocity as if it's a good thing and asking me to send them money.
Lately, I've voluntarily been extricating myself from my involvement with the websites of the billionaire class. It's not a project to be taken on lightly. It changes the Internet, injecting friction into areas where I am not used to it. I have to think instead of using muscle memory. Having a new email address for the first time in 20 years is disconcerting. Leaving Facebook was absolutely the right thing to do, but I miss the people from my old job and high school friends I only saw on there. For years, I've been able to watch whatever blockbuster show I wanted because subscribing to ALL the streaming services wasn't that expensive. Now, having a moral code is giving me FOMO. What if something superb comes on Amazon Prime after my divorce from Jeff Bezos goes through? I hate the thought.
It's been a good weekend. I got to spend a few hours with my oldest friend today. Wonder Woman and I wrapped a good British TV show. I have a couple of trips to look forward to, And, I am still retired.
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Amazon Exit Toolkit
My wife and I are in the process of detangling ourselves from four of the biggest tech companies: Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Of those four, Amazon is the most firmly entrenched in our lives since the company, and it's owner without a soul, billionaire Jeff Bezos provide various services we use, forcing us to find alternatives in several different areas.
News
We dumped our subscription to the Washington Post during the 2024 election when Bezos, the owner of the newspaper, compelled the editorial department to kill its endorsement of the Harris/Walz ticket. While there are some quality journalists working at the paper, Bezos recently became even more involved with editorial policy, making it more pro-MAGA. We took the money we were spending on the Post and the New York Times and used it to support
- ProPublica — Investigative Journalism and News in the Public Interest
- Joan Westenberg.
- Democracy Now! | Democracy Now!
eBooks
We've been ebook readers since shortly after the Kindle was released. We no longer use Kindle devices to read on, opting for our iPads these days, but we've purchased over 500 titles for the platform from Amazon. I recently downloaded all those files, removed the DRM and converted the files to epub format. Going forward, we will use the following stores and our technical skills to make our eBook purchases available to us on whatever platform we choose.
Audiobooks
Although you can still download audiobooks purchased from the Amazon owned Audible company, the day may come where you are prevented from doing that. I used a free tool to download and convert another 500+ books using Libation - Audiobook Downloader and Converter. I used the Mac app, Permute, to convert some older audiobooks I had downloaded from an account to which I no longer had access. Going forward, we will use these sources for audiobooks instead of Audible.
- Audiobooks.com
- Chirp | A Better Way to Audiobook
- Libro.fm, Your Independent Bookstore for Digital Audiobooks | Libro.fm
Television
While Amazon Prime Video has had many shows we've enjoyed, our primary use of the service has been as a conduit to British television via Britbox and Acorn TV. Luckily for us, both of those services have app for the AppleTV, the streaming device we use.
Photographs
We have nearly a terabyte of photos and videos uploaded to Amazon's servers and they don;t make it easy to download them, limiting individual downloads to 200 images at the time. Just to get our photos from the single year of 2014 required 96 separate downloads. Never again. Once I finish getting all the files onto my drive, I will be using an end-to-end encrypted service with servers in Europe to store my photos in the cloud. It also has automatic uploads of iPhone photos, just like Amazon and Google, another place we are leaving.
Ente - Private cloud storage for your photos, videos and more
Shopping
We've found that we can get better deals on products these days by shopping around vs. just buying from Amazon. A couple of examples are the companies Wonder Woman uses for her sports nutrition products and her running shoes.
Sensei - Do You Need It?
When it comes to Mac utilities, there are things that are helpful
to have, but that are not absolutely required. Many of the "nice to
have" features can be gained through installing various free, well
regarded applications. For people who don't want the hassle of
assembling a toolkit piece by piece, there are apps like Sensei by Cindori Software, for
optimization and information.
Sensei Features vs. Free Alternatives
- Hardware monitoring of CPU, GPU, RAM, temps, storage and battery. A free alternative is Stats
- Cleaning of old caches, logs, big downloads and leftover installation files. A free alternative is Onyx
- Uninstalling apps. If you just throw apps into the trash, which was once the accepted way to perform uninstallations, you can potentially leave behind GBs of files in ~/Library subfolders. Intelligent uninstallers locate and remove those files. Free alternatives are AppCleaner and Pear Cleaner
- Monitor hard drive health, Drive failures can sometimes be predicted, giving you time to back your data and replace your drive. A free alternative is Disk Drill.
- Battery Health. Batteries degrade over time and depending on how long you keep a laptop, may need to be replaced. Utilities like Sensei can tell you how much of your battery's orininal capacity is still viable. A free alternative is Coconut Battery.
- Drive benchmarking - measuring the speed of your hard drive isn't necessarily helpful for commercial software, but some special use cases require higher speeds. A free alternative is Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
- Startup analyzer - you may have more apps running in the background or at startup than your realize. I recently found five Microsoft remnants that didn't get uninstalled when I got rid of Microsoft 365. A fee alternative is Startup Manager.
Sensei is a subscription app that costs $29 a year for a license that covers three Macs. A similar product, CleanMyMac, by MacPaw, is included in Setapp.
Shenandoah National Park
My journal prompt today was to find my favorite photo of myself. This is a picture my wife took of me on our honeymoon. 
Quiet

Our house is a quiet one. Our neighborhood is quiet. Neither me not Wonder Woman have loud voices normally, although we do occasionally get excited. My kids follow my lead on this. My son doesn't even have a TV and although, like me, he loves music and has a large collection, he enjoys nothing more than sitting in silence with a book. My daughter does have a TV, but it isn't on much. She has a six-year-old who can be a little rambunctious, but generally, it's a calm home.
Although Wonder Woman is like me, the rest of her family is not. Her girls and her parents like having a TV on in the background. The grandkids are all big gamers so you get those sounds too. My Dad is another person who gets nervous without a TV on in the background. He turns one on just as soon as he wakes up, and it stays on all day, either on Fox News or sports, although he does enjoy the odd YouTube video from time to time. It doesn't bother me, but I'm usually ready for quiet when we go home.
When we have grandkids over for a visit, I know that it will be louder than normal. I am OK with that. I may occasionally ask one of them to use headphones or to turn the volume down on their video game or tablet, but I don't make them feel bad about it or walk on eggshells. I wasn't always that cool about it, though. I've grown more flexible about that with age.
One of my greatest traveling anxieties is being trapped in a loud hotel. I've left more than one in the middle of the night because I just couldn't handle the racket and the staff's inability to do anything about it. I may have even yelled at the noisemakers, a group from a ski trip who came rolling in loud at midnight. I just don't understand the mentality of people who are not volume aware.
Camping in a group campground brings on the same feeling. Breaking out a boom box and serenading people who may have different taste in music or who might want to, I don't know, hear the birds sing is just pure rude. Getting drunk and talking loud around a campfire past the "quiet hour" is another sure sign of low intelligence and poor home training. I also consider hiking spaces to be close to sacred. When some trail runner with a Bluetooth speaker comes blasting by, I want to trip them. Then kick them.
For years, one of my hobbies was downloading, listening to and rating music. I'd sit at my computer for long stretches happily tagging songs, reading reviews of albums and making wish lists of songs or albums I wanted to get. Streaming took the joy out of that, and I rarely add anything new anymore, unless it is an album by an artist I already like. If I am home alone, I'll play music while I cook or clean house, but apart from that, it's quiet.
Oddly, I can write in the noisiest locations. I am perfectly fine to work on my blog on a car trip while a podcast plays in the background. Writing on a plane is no problem. Before I retired, i'd often write at work during my lunch break, with the usual office sounds going on around me. I get aggravated in loud restaurants if i am can't have a conversation with my companions, but it is that fact and not the noise itself which I find grating.
My idea of heaven is sitting on the deck of a cabin up in the Appalachian Mountains, preferable beside a stream on a mild day with a cold beverage and something good to read. That's the spot I go to in my mind when I am trying to relax when tense.
Oh, and leaf blowers suck.
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SiteSucker for Mac - Affordable and Powerful
Today I downloaded and tested an app that's been on my radar for a
while, SiteSucker
for Mac by developer Rick
Cranisky.. You can give this app a top level URL, specify how many
layers deep you want to go and it will download an entire web site,
complete with supporting files like images and style sheets. It has
regex filters for anything you want to exclude. After I ran it the first
time, I read the error log and excluded the site that was causing issues
and it ran much better after that. SiteSucker has been under continuous
development since the birth of Mac OX in 2001.
The version available in the App Store is $4.99. It does not downloaded embedded videos. To get that feature you need to download the pro version of the app from the developer's website. Be prepared to an extra $1 for the pro version. The developer states :
"SiteSucker Pro is an enhanced version of SiteSucker that can download embedded videos, including embedded YouTube, Vimeo, WordPress, and Wistia videos. SiteSucker Pro can also download sites from the Tor network. You can try SiteSucker Pro for up to 14 days before you buy it. During that period, the application is fully functional except that you can download no more than 100 files at a time."
When I ran SiteSuckker against one of my blogs, it created a copy of the website on my hard drive that was indistinguishable from the site hosted by my provider. The internal links were pointed to the local files downloaded, while the external links still pointed to the Internet. I had a couple of external links that generated downloads of huge XML files, in one case 375MBs of them. There are reports from some users that they've filled up all the available hard drive space by changing the default settings and not monitoring the download. Don't do that!
You can create default settings or save the settings for different websites as individual files you can open if you wish to re-download a copy of a site.
Aging Parents
I am still trying to get used to my parents as elderly/senior/old. Both of them were born in 1947 (does math) which means they will turn 78 this year. They are long divorced, so my relationship with them isn't a joint one. My Mom has been a widow since 2008. My Dad has been married to my step-mom for 43 years. Wonder Woman's wonderful parents are also still kicking. Her mom just turned 80 and her dad is 85.
Mom is exceptionally healthy. She's always eaten well and taken care of herself. She exercises regularly. And, she assures me frequently, she's only had two glasses of wine since Christmas, which is a likely story, but she doesn't have any alcohol related issues.
My Dad has had three or four heart attacks, numerous stints and coronary bypass surgery. An Army helicopter pilot, he had to quit flying in the 80s because of his blood pressure. He walks with a cane these days and not very far.
I've gotten good, personalized advice from kind people on the Internet about being an asset to my folks in the struggles we are all going to face as we age. It's a topic that isn't alwats fun to research, but I think it's better to do it electively, than to wait until panic strikes.

50 Things to do with elderly parents
Complete List of Things to Do for Elderly Parents
Ageing parents need help? 6 things you can do
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This Week's Bookmarks - Taxi Reunion, Gen Z and Phone Calls, Sports Analytics, Best Books, The Pandemic, Best Sports Moments, Facebook Exposed

“Taxi ”stars reunite to pay tribute to castmate Danny DeVito more than 40 years after show's end - Tony Danza, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, and Christopher Lloyd met up to watch their former costar Danny DeVito accept the Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theater at the Roundabout Theatre Company's gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City. The show's cocreator, James L. Brooks, also attended
‘No, I’m not phoning to say I’m dying!’ My gruelling week of calling gen Z friends rather than texting them - Of those aged 18 to 34 – 61% prefer a text to a call, and 23% never bother answering
Analytics transformed sports. Has it also made them less entertaining? - The Washington Post - The "Moneyball" era changed how teams play, coach and are built. But the quest for efficiency is increasingly being blamed for robbing sports of their beauty.
Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations - The best books on every subject
30 Charts That Show How Everything Changed in March 2020 - The New York Times - Decades from now, the pandemic will be visible in the historical data of nearly anything measurable today: an unmistakable spike, dip or jolt that officially began for Americans five years ago this month.
The 100 Best Sports Moments of the Quarter Century - The Ringer - When the impossible becomes possible, when the definition of absurd is redefined, when men and women turn into superheroes—you don’t easily forget something like that.
Book Review: ‘Careless People,’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams - The New York Times - The publisher of "Careless People" kept the existence of this memoir a secret until a few days ago — with good reason, it turns out. For seven years, beginning in 2011, the book's author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, worked at Facebook (now called Meta), eventually as a director of global public policy.
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The Pier at Avon on NC's Outer Banks
My daughter got married about 100 yards down the beach from this pier on the weekend before Memorial Day in 2006.. 
Five Bloggers You Should Get to Know

Some people just have a talent for blogging. They have innate curiosity, a good command of language and the discipline to combine the two in digestible bits for the web. Sometimes they are funny, often scathing, usually insightful and cheefully devoid of ego. These people get bookmarked. They get their own folder in my RSS reader and tonight they get shared with you.
shellsharks
His intro reads - Welcome to Shellsharks - a blog, an IndieWeb site, a community, and a central point-of-presence for myself on the web. What I publish here is a reference for myself but is available to be consumed by all. I write about all things Infosec, Technology and Life in general. Follow shellsharks on Mastodon
Hollie - Small Good Things
Follow Hollie on Mastodon - Her bio - she/they
Enthusiastic about #nature, hats, kindness, #puns, #tea, funny stories, personal websites, lichen, bags, space, boats, hobbits, #UrbanSketching, #books, #watercolors, laughing, ham radio, #bicycling, #monsterdon, #cooking, #knitting, spinning, sewing.
#HSP, #fibro & #MECFS, MCAS, #anxiety, #ADHD.
GenX, happily married to @gregtitus for 29 yrs, mom of two adult kids (one hard-of-hearing, one autistic trans). Wears heart on sleeve. Trans rights are human rights.
mb - jarunmb.com
Follow mb on Mastodon - Not just another tech guy on the Fediverse. Instead, you get a real live human, sharing about the ins and outs of work, parenting, blogging, learning and adapting to life in 2025. One of my favorites.
Pratik - Nerve Endings Firing Away
Follow Pratik on Mastodon - Do you like smart, challenging people? I do. That's why I follow Pratik. He's an authentic guy who isn't afraid to point things out when they need to be pointed out. His Mastodon bio - "I live in Austin. I typically post photos and post personal and work-related updates, especially travel. I offer my opinions on Internet trends and media, talk about TV and movies I watch, share books I read or want to read, rant on right-wing politics, and advocate for inclusion and diversity in all facets of life."
Mark R. Stoneman
Follow Mark on Mastodon - Like I said, I like smart people and this New England historian fits that bill. Mark is friendly, thoughtful and has a knack for relating what is happening today with events from the past. As a veteranr who has lived around military bases my whole life, I've know a whole bunch of Gis, but Mark is the first Ivy League combat arms guy I've encountered - and an enlisted one at that!! Good people as we say down here.
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CharmBar - Easy Dock Customization
Like many Mac users, I enjoy customizing the look of my operating
system. I particularly like the look of older, vintage icons from Mac
history, having spent a lot of memorable and enjoyable times on older
machines. There are several apps that let you make changes to program
icons, Replacicon
is a well known example, but Apple made it hard to alter systems icons,
Don't like the Finder face? Tough. Apple wants you to have it.
Enter CharmBar, a delightful little app from kepler.cafe, makers of DockDoor, another well thought out app that gives you Window previews when you hover the cursor over icons on the dock. Using Charmbar, you can alter or replace dock icons.with any emoji, jpg or png file. Its simple interface lets you create your own library of files. When you pick an application icon to add your own touches to, you select one or more of the images you've added to your library and overlay the original icon. You can completely cover it up or just add whimsical flourishes.
Your changes show up in real time. If you grow tired of the extra elements, they'll go away when you close the program, which runs from the menu bar.
Charmbar is a one-time purchase of $5 on Gumroad. One license code is good for installing the app on up to three Macs. There are no subscriptions and no invasive elements to suck away your data. The developer is active on Reddit, and doesn't appear to mind interacting with the community.
Retirement So Far

As the end of my second week of retired life draws to an end, I am reminded that nothing is routine. Weather irregularities and disruptions caused by maintenance issues at the university have had Wonder Woman working from home, which is nice because I like hanging out with her even when she is busy. It's kept me from firmly entrenching myself in a routine, however. When I told her that she was messing with my flow, she didn't appreciate it. All I meant is that it is challenging to establish a routine when the pattern of the days varies so much. Sheesh!
I've continued to work on my home office. It got relocated from our unused dining room to the living area where the two of us hang out so that I can work on my projects without being in a different part of the house. I rounded up all the external hard drives I had floating around, a total of eleven. When added together, they give me 17 TB of extra storage added to the four TB of internal storage in my computers. A lot of that will be unused space for a while. Some of it is being used as backup locations. I set up a Plex server on my Linux computer with movies, TV shows, music, and photos.
Another project is disconnecting from all the big tech companies apart from Apple to the extent possible. We are leaving Gmail and using Fastmail. I have all my important accounts using the new email already. I spend about an hour a day moving some other 240 accounts using my Google credentials each day. I will have that finished by the middle of April. I managed to download and remove the DRM from 500 Kindle ebooks and 500 Audible audiobooks. We are trying to decide on new vendors for each of those media types. We are dropping Amazon Prime next month, so I am in the process of downloading nearly a TB of backed up photos from there. I uninstalled all Microsoft products from my computers, but those sneaky bastards left several processes behind that I had to remove via the Terminal to finally disconnect.
I set up a weekly lunch data with my father. He's the primary caregiver for my step-mother who has advanced Alzheimer's. He needs a break once in a while, and I am happy to spend time with him. We've never been especially close, but he is fun to spend time with. He's a talented storyteller and good at making conversation.
I've assumed sole responsibility for the grocery shopping so that our weekends aren't partially given over to that chore. Wonder Woman wanted me to start making some of her favorite vegetables more frequently, so I've been loading up on asparagus, zucchini, fresh green beans and the like. She never turns down a cuppa either, so we've been having many mugs of the top-shelf Irish tea I love so much.
My sleep patterns are shot all to hell. We go to bed early because Wonder Woman likes to run before work. I am usually awake for good between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, when I get up to start writing. Of course, I get sleepy later on, indulging in a nap while sitting on the couch. I'd like to consolidate that sleep to a continuous period during the night but so far it's not working out.
We've had a couple of weekend getaways. One was to Raleigh for my birthday where we had a good time visiting our favorite restaurants and shops. Then we went down to the South Carolina low country for a race. Next weekend is the first camping trip of 2025 with five of the grandkids. Next month we are going back to Southwest Virginia for the first time since Hurricane Helene. My kiddos have been on the road too or are getting ready to. My daughter and family went to Costa Rica for a family vacation. She's been sending me daily pictures and keeping me updated. My son is preparing for a trip next week to Frankfurt and Berlin for business. His passion is art and I hope he gets a chance to see some good museums between meetings.
As you can see, I have not been bored or looking for things to do. My dream of long spells of uninterrupted time to write has yet to come to fruition, but it will get here soon enough.
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Birds of Asia
The Scarlet-faced Liocichla, native to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and southern China. #Birds
Giving Criticism

On my software review blog, AppAddict, I focus on apps I like and that I think will be helpful to other Mac users. The only time I write negative reviews is when I don't like a company's business practices or when my take on an app is different than that of the majority. I give apps a fair test and I'm generally willing to give a developer the benefit of the doubt. I've gotten good feedback from a number of them, including a few I've kind of idolized over the years. The day will come, though, when the author of one of the apps of which I was critical is going to hit me up with a WTF? I'll be glad to listen and if I got something wrong, I'll correct my mistake.I won't just change my take on it because someone asks me to. Lame.
I don't think many people are good at giving constructive criticism or negative feedback. Have you ever had a boss that would email the entire department when trying to correct one person's behavior because they were just to chickenshit to talk to them one on one? I endured that for years with more than one boss. Another indicator of poor people skills is when a boss waits until your annual performance review to criticize you, instead of being a coach or a mentor. Managers get paid to manage, but too many of them don't seem ti like that part of the job.
Giving criticism isn't being mean. Sometimes withholding it is. It's a skill that can be learned. Here are some resources.
How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips - Personal Excellence - Includes the infamous feedback sandwich method
Do You Know How To Write A Good Bad Review? | by Liz King | Medium - By now we all know where to look for online reviews — on Yelp, Google, or Facebook. But do we know how to write them, and do we understand how they can impact a small business?
Are You Being Too Critical in Your Relationship? | Psychology Today - Because we aren't taught how to navigate differences in our relationships, we tend to do it badly. However, as adults, we can learn to navigate differences in a healthy way, fostering more safety and connection in our relationships.
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New File Finding App, Cling, Is Not Everything
I recently saw a new Mac file finding app, Cling, announced on Macupdate and
Thriftmac. The description of
the app said that it brings fuzzy search to a utility with a GUI.
Searches with partial or misspelled file names are promised to work. The developer's website states
that the app is designed to be similar in function to the legendary
Windows file finding utility, Everything,
which is indeed, one of the best file finding apps I have ever used.
I've installed it for many users who needed to search network drives
containing thousands of files.
I read the documentation on the website which went into detail about the amount of CPU power consumed and the memory needed to run Cling. Logically, since it does not use the Spotlight indez like some other search tools, it n needed time after starting the first time to create its own index. The website said that it takes about five minutes. I gave it a couple of hours. I ran my first seach using the word Obsidian as my search term. I've written several articles and taken a lot of notes about the app by that name. I wanted to see what Cling would return. To my surprise and dismay, it returned a list of folders with Obsidian in the path name. I tried several other searches and discovered that including a file extension helped it locate files to some extent. The results Windows only shows 30 results by default, which you can adjust up to 100, but there is no way to have it show you all the files it finds that match what you are searching for.
To compare the results, I used Find any File, another Mac file-finding utility that builds its own indez. A search for Obsidian returned 4,734 hits, all of which it displayed for me to sort and search through. I did not have to try different file extensions, nor did my results contain unrelated folders that had Obsidian in the path name. I was much happier with the results.
Other Mac search utilities that worked better for me are:
Farm House on River Road
An abandoned tenant house on the Hubbard farm in rural Cumberland County, NC
I was reviewing my journal this morning and saw this from today’s date in 2024 - Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to @jarrod
Window to the Past
Window to the past. Think of the conversations held around that table. McDougald Road, Mamers, NC 
How To Make Me Like Your Blog

Reblogged from last May because I like this one!
As I spend less and less time on commercial websites and more time
exploring the blogs on IndieWeb platforms, I am developing a type and
preferences. There's plenty to choose from.
I like tech but not too much tech
For better
or worse, it takes a fairly technical person to get involved in
blogging. A lot of the people I read are developers of some sort or
other even if they don't write about that part of their lives that much.
I enjoy reading about the relationship people have with the tech in
their life and how that has evolved over time. I find it interesting to
read about what people are making, although if a blog primarily consists
of code blocks and inside baseball talk about the nuances of particular
programming languages, I'm probably going to move on. Most people do a
pretty good job at striking a balance.
I like smart and smart-ass but not people who think themselves
smarter than everyone else
There are a few bloggers
who consistently write about how dumb people are and it's a big old turn
off. I like smart people. I like people smarter than me (not hard). I
even like people with a smart ass sense of humor but I have worked for
too long with stereotypical computer support people who think all end
users are stupid and I'm so very weary of that attitude. I think it's
great to point out the misconceptions of others but it's boorish if
that's the main thing someone writes about.
I like people whose political content is about peace,
compassion, equality and diversity
In other words,
I'm not a fan of, nor will I read very much of what passes as
conservative ideology these days. I don't want to live in a bubble but
I'm just not going to waste any of my remaining time on this planet
engaging with people who don't believe in climate change or the
importance of stamping out white supremacy or in allowing people to be
as non-traditional as they want to be. Luckily, I haven't run into too
much of that on Mastodon or Scribbles or Micro.blog.
I like consistency
If you are the kind of
blogger who just spits out content day after day, I'm here to tell you
to keep it up! I realize not everybody has that in them and that's OK.
With me, you just don't have to worry that you post too much. If you
only write a few paragraphs a week, it's harder to get to know you, to
develop curiosity about your the things you share. I don't always have
the time or the inclination to read 5,000 word missives, but I like
knowing what folks are up to.
I like friendly
I'm from the south and have
lived here my whole life. Down here we have a sort of innate
familiarity. We are apt to ask how your Mama's doing even if we don't
know her. I like people who come across with that same sort of vibe,
letting pieces of their real lives leak out. I absolutely do not mind
hearing about you feeling tired taking your kid to basketball practice
or shocking news about your grandma's affair. I like authentic people
who don't posture, who are just themselves, struggling like the rest of
us to make sense of a confusing world without resorting to barrier
building between themselves and their readers.
Quotes for Every Occassion - Please Share Yours!

I love quotes. Nothing would make me happier than for you to send me any of your favorites in an email, or post them on mastodon or Bluesky and tag me. I'll be glad to give a shout out to anyone who cares to share.
"Everything you can imagine is real." — Pablo Picasso
“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” — George Lucas
"Who looks outward dreams, who looks inward awakens." — Carl Jung
I was doing some maintenance on my collection of quotes today, a relaxing, if never ending task. I had a few highlights I'd saved without also recording the author's name, so I did a full text search for them on Kagi and found out that Goodreads has a huge quotes repository. Every single quote I was looking for had a Goodreads page. I found pages for Albert Camus, Maya Angelo, Joseph Campbell and several other notables.
More Quote Websites
A-Z Quotes | Quotes for All Occasions
Best and famous collection of quotes at QuotesLyfe
My Collection of 500+ Authors and Quotes
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In Search of the Perfect Quotes App
I have collected quotes for years, using various apps, Obsidian Notes, spreadsheets and Google Docs. I am still in search of the elusive perfect, feature packed app. Here's what I would like the app to be able to do.
Features I Want
- Import from a spreadsheet containing the quote, author, source, tag(s), date collected
- iCloud or other reliable syncing mechanism
- Export individual quotes in a format suitable for social media
- Universal (Mac and iOS)
- Automatic import of author pictures and biographies from Wikipedia or other source
- Share sheet in and out
- Searchable by tag or author
- A nice to have, but not absolutely required feature would be importing Kindle highlights
Apps That Have Some of These Features
- Quotemarks - Quote Notebook - This comes close, but it doesn't sync through the cloud and doesn't have a way to share anything but text to social media.
- Thoughts - Inspiration Manager - iOS only. Does not display a list of authors. Tag list is not in alphabetical order.
- Quotes - Organize and Recall - Mac only. Can't import anything other than a Kindle clippings file.
- Quotebook by Lickability - The OG quotes app dating back to 2011. It was removed from the App Store in 2016, but has remained usable. The deprecated version has good syncing via iCloud, automatic import of author pictures and biographies, import and export through CSV. There is no Mac version, however and it's sure to break one day since it is quintessential abandonware.
- Quotz - a nice iOS app of quality quotes, but you can't add your own. It does have good sharing features though
- BrainyQuote - Another nice quote data base with good sharing features, but with no way to add your own content
- TextShot - Works on Mac and iOS. Allows you to create your own quotes with title, author and source, but only saves image files of the quotes, no tagging, no searching.
- Quotify - No way to import existing quote collection except through one at a time manual entry. Have to use work around for tagging. Doesn't display a list of authors or tags. Has nice sharing features. The individual import feature is also well thought out.
Quote Sources
If you are interested, I have a repository on GitHub with Markdown notes from 500+ authors and public figures with one or more quotes from each of them. Browse the notes or download a ZIP of the whole thing. They are formatted for Obsidian, if that's your jam.
Goodreads also has an extensive quote library.
ACAB or Not?

The centrist and traditionalist wing of the Democratic Party stays perpetually irritated at the more progressive and leftist members of the party. James Carville recently said that "defund the police" were the three stupidest words ever uttered by a politician. I can never tell whether the Democrats who rake in all the corporate dollars are compromised progressives or not. I have a hard time believing that Barak Obama was ever truly against same-sex marriage, or Bill Clinton either for that matter, but both of them stood in front of news cameras and said they were. I tend to think they were both temporary sell outs for the sake of courting middle of the road voters.
Richard Nixon and George Wallace both ran a law and order campaign in 1968, appealing to older people who were put off by all the scary black people and the college kids raising hell about the war. For a long time, members of both parties were all about mandatory minimum sentences, building more prisons, and hiring more cops. Right-wing television has never met a killer cop they didn't like and defend. Most voters seem to be OK with short-changing all kinds of people in need to be able to spend money on law enforcement. Smart politicians try to scare the hell out of people because it works. Scared people vote for those they think will protect them.
I'll go ahead and say that no, I do not think All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB). I don't believe that all of any group is homogeneous. I do think that police work, unfortunately, attracts too many people who aren't suited for it. Too many cops shoot to kill, claiming they were scared for their life because some black person did something besides lay perfectly still on the ground. Too may judges and juries fall for that shit and too may people are dead because of it. Hey, it can be a scary job, I get it, but if you tend to frighten easily, don't sign up for the police. Do something else.
The tiny university where I worked spent big bucks buying gear for the campus police, including two four-wheel-drive vehicles and new long barrelled weapons. This was the same year they laid off librarians, admin assistants and humanities professors. Of course, they also changed the names of the DEI department since January too. But hey, people still have their pronouns in the email signatures and discreet pride flags can be seen, so the important stuff is covered, I guess.
I'm going to go ahead and say, too, that if you think we need militarized police forces with armored vehicles and arsenals of automatic weapons, you and I probably should not hang out. If you think we require more prisons while ignoring aging school buildings, stay away from me. If you are already over the death of George Floyd and think all that Black Lives Matter stuff was a bad idea, well, you aren't alone, but neither are you right.
All over the US, people who were late to the party to recognize police violence against people of color are already sauntering back to their liberal (I don't mean that in a good way) attitudes. That's when you support people of color as long as they don't live next door. The right-wing crazies are making room for the reluctant supporters of maybe, just maybe, spending a little less on cops and a little more on preventing crime to abandon that risky idea. I mean, when James Carville is calling you stupid, how can you be right?
Well, not me folks. I'm all for spending money on kids, education, health care, poverty prevention and a host of other worth causes and instead of the po-po. I don't think giving the police even more immunity from violent crimes they commit is anything but crazy. I think that anyone who is afraid to publicly state that Black Lives Matter is a POS. Sorry, if the shoe fits. I'm not going to be one of those white folks who are secretly relieved that it is OK to be a little racist again. I'm not going to sell out my LGB or my T friends either, no matter how easy it now is to get away with it. Why, because right is right and wrong is wrong and popular opinion ain't got shit to do with it.
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Black and White Diner
Not your average taco place, is it? One of their specialties is bulgogi with kimci.
<img src=“https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2025/day-one2025-03-11-at-04.10.38.jpeg" width=“600” height=“399” alt=“A black and white image of a retro diner interior featuring a long counter with several swivel bar stools. The counter area is attended by three staff members working in the kitchen. The ceiling has pendant lights and ceiling fans. On the left, there are several round tables with chairs. A large sign above the counter reads “Off the Hook Taco Emporium.” The overall atmosphere is vintage and cozy.">
Underrated Awesome Stuff

One of my favorite parts of living in the information age is the ease of discovery of entertainment options. I remember when we had to wait for the TV Guide to show up in the mailbox, listen to FM radio and read the siges outside the cinema for information. Now, thanks to huge databases and fan communities, you can get in depth suggestions from your digital alter ego at a moment's notice. It's also fun tio find out what your friends like. You can ask questions and give feedback. Here are a few under the radar picks from yours truly.
Books
- Lexicon by Max Barry - a science fiction novel about an organization that teaches it's candidates how to use language as a way to control the minds of others
- Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover - the author practices immersice journalism by placing himself in situations where he experiences life first hand in order to write about it. In this case he takes a job as a guard at Sing Sing prison in NY to explore modern American prisons.
- A Rising Man (Sam Wyndham, #1) by Abir Mukherjee - Set in India during the British Raj, this is a novel featuring a detective who is an opium addicted veteran of The Great War. It has a great sense of time and place.
- Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded by David Hepworth - I love books about music and this one thoroughly explores the greatest year in rock hostory when classic albums by Led Zepplin, The Who, Carole King, James Taylor, Rod Stewart, Joanie Mitchell and more were released.
- The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan - Michael Pollan may be the best popular science writer alive. In this book he explores four plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato in a way that us informative and entertaining.
TV Shows
- Scott & Bailey - D.C. Rachel Bailey and D.C. Janet Scott have a robust and engaging friendship which enables them to draw upon each other’s strengths and investigate murders for the Manchester Metropolitan Police. I love the strong female leads.
- Broadchurch - The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart. I've been a David Tennant and an Olivia Coleman fave ever since I watched this.
- The Fall - When the Police Service of Northern Ireland are unable to close a case after 28 days, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson of the Metropolitan Police Service is called in to review the case. Under her new leadership, the local detectives must track down and stop a serial killer who is terrorising the city of Belfast. Not one to watch alone. It is intense.
- Inspector George Gently - A British crime drama adapted from the George Gently novels by Alan Hunt and set in the 1960s. Inspector George Gently is an old-school detective trying to come to terms with a time when the lines between the police and criminals have become blurred. British cop shows are so much better than American ones. They think more, shoot less.
- Foyle's War - As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. A great job of recreating Britain during its greatest hour.
Movies
- The Station Agent (2003) - When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss. Peter Dinklage before GOT.
- Yesterday (2019) - A struggling musician realizes he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where the group was forgotten. Lot's of Beatles music and a few surprises.
- The Dig (2021) - As WWII looms, a wealthy widow hires an amateur archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future. One of those movies that will have you reading Wikipedia articles as soon as it is over.
- Chef (2014) - When Chef Carl Casper suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner, he is left to figure out what's next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife, his friend and his son to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen -- and zest for life and love. Even though Jon Favreau is responsible for a bunch of MCU schlock, he redeems himself in this story about self discovery and parenthood.
- The Bookshop (2017) - Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield. Another story with a strong, indomitable female character.
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Swinsian Music App - The Answer to Feature Bloat
Swinsian is an app for playing
music that ticks every box in what a Mac based music player for local
libraries sgould be. I can think of no other app that exemplifies bloat
like Apple's Music app, a product desgned not for ease of use, but for
maximization of revenue. Someone in Cupertino decided that none of us
who had massive, carefully tagged collections of music files collected
over the years deserved an app to make thge best use of our tunes. They
decided we' were just going to stream and that we were going to be happy
doing it.
Swinsian took a backup of my iTunes (yes, iTunes) library from 2017, with 32K songs from 2.3K albums and imported the information in a matter of minutes, complete with play counts, ratings and playlists. The customizable interface is reminiscent of a time when iTunes just worked. Now that the information is imported, Swinsian will monitor the folder where I keep my music and automatically add any other files I place there.
You can download and use all of the features of Swinsian without limitations for 30 days, after which it requires a license costing $25. It's available at the developer's website.
Features
Customize
There are multiple ways to view tracks: art grid, column browser and track inspector, all of which can be hidden if you are into a minimal interface.
Organize
Tag multiple tracks at once with ease. Use regular expressions to find and replace tags, ensuring your music stays perfectly tagged. The Duplicate Finder comes in handy, helping you find and remove duplicate tracks with flexible criteria, keeping your library organized and clutter-free.
Control
Control playback with global shortcuts and the mini window. The customizable desktop art widget adds a nice touch to the interface.
Other Nice Touches
- Folder watching
- Album art fetching
- Playback Notifications
- Last.fm scrobbling
- Separate playlist windows
- Find and replace tag editing, with regex support
- Smart playlists
- Library stats
- Playback over AirPlay
- Automatic Podcast downloading
- Applescript control
Audiophile Information
- 10 or 31 band Graphic Equalizer
- Supports Flac, MP3, AAC, ALAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, WAV, Opus, AC3, AIFF, MusePack, DSF, and APE.
- Gapless playback
- Automatic changing of device sample rate
- Support for cue files and embedded cue information
Other Reviews
SW Virginia Before the Hurricane
From The Virgina Creeper Trail, Mount Rogers National Recreation Area prior to Hurricane Helene. It looks much different now.
Communication Evolution

For years when I was growing up, my Mom's husband refused to get a telephone put in our house. What was strange was that he was a journalist. He spent so much time at the newspaper office that they never needed to call him at home. The rest of us just did without talking to our grandparents or friends except in person. I'm not sure how my mother managed to arrange visits with the family, but she figured it out.
One set of grandparents were on a party line. One long ring meant the call was for them. Two short rings meant it was for the neighbors. If you wanted call someone in the same town, you only had to dial five numbers. Theirs was the first phone number I ever learned and more than 50 years later, I still remember it.
I moved to my uncle's farm when I was a freshman in high school. He and my aunt lived in a 100-year-old farmhouse that thankfully had a telephone, but just one. It had about 50 feet (ca. 15 m) of phone wire tethering it to the wall, so it was semi-portable if you cared to string the wire all through the house to get someplace where you could talk in private.
I wasn't dying to get a cell phone when they first became popular. The whole process of typing out texts on a keypad seemed utterly ridiculous and only business executives and politicians had Blackberrys. Besides, I wanted an actual portable computer, so I spent my money on a Palm Pilot at first. I eventually had to get a cell phone for work. My youngest daughter got a job at Subway, just so she could buy a cell phone, buy somehow I got stuck with the bill. She started dating a GI whose home state, and cell phone number were both Florida based. It didn't matter that he was right down the road at Ft. Bragg. Every time she called him, and she called him A LOT, it was a long-distance charge. She also couldn't stay within her limit of text messages and I got a few surprises there too.
I wish I had the nerd cred to claim ownership of a first gen iPhone, but I didn't make the move until 2009. One of my co-workers was at the Apple Store on Day One though, and he laid down the dough for that squat, under-powered little world changer. There wasn't even an app store. You just went to websites that acted like apps. Steve Jobs said they were just as good.
Once I got an iPhone, I became one of those new phone every year people for the next decade. I made a few release day drives to the nearest Apple Store, a 75-mile one-way drive from home. Luckily, I've never broken a display despite dropping the damn things hundreds of times. I've even driven off with my phone on the hood of my car and didn't break it by slinging it onto the road. I have washed an iPhone in the washing machine. I was sad about that. I also left my phone and wallet at a store when out on a long bike ride once and didn't get either of them back.
I kept the iPhone 11 for four years. I only upgraded because Obsidian wouldn't work correctly on a phone that old. Of course, these days everyone has a phone. My parents both have iPhones and only call me about them occasionally. All but the youngest of the grandkids have phones and I absolutely love texting them. If Wonder Woman and I do anything fun without them, I let them know. I don't go in a candy store without sending "Wish you were here!!" One of our kids, the youngest is a rebellious sort occasionally goes over to the dark side and rocks an Android from time to time. My sister, who has multiple degrees, good politics, a kind heart and a giant brain, has never owned a single Apple product in her life, a character flaw if there ver was one. My Republican brother is also Not An Apple Person. Everyone else is, though.
I like to look at my usage stats from time to time. My goal each month is to have less than five minutes of actual voice use. I don't care how much data I burn through or how many messages I send and receive, I just don't want to talk on the phone. This isn't the 80s.
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Can We Agree That Recipe Blogs Are the Worst?

I like a great many elements of the Internet, even in 2025, when cookie banners, privacy warnings, newsletter subscription popups and the like rob us all of some joy while we browser. I get hives when I have to search for a simple recipe. Every person who's ever read an article on how to monetize a blog seems to have decided that the blog they need to create should have recipes and a metric ton of search engine optimization crap on it. Not only that, instead of just saying "This is good. You should cook it." Recipe bloggers need to talk about how their Aunt Nancy made the recipe on ger organic Vermont rabbit farm when they were kids. I don't like it. Not a fan.
Here are some recipe websites where you don't have to deal with that anxiety inducing clutter. If you want to make some cornbread, they will tell you how to do it without commenting on how you should feel about doing it.
If You Need to Bake a Cake - Get Mela Recipe Manager
I've got cake on the brain today, for some reason...
I've extensively tested four different recipe management apps, all available in the App Store:
All of them are quality apps and they are not mirror images of each other. Anylist, for example has helpful features unrelated to groceries or cooking. It, along with Crouton, is a subscription app. Paprika is a one time purchase of $29.99. Mela, my pick for recipes, is only $9.99. The developer, Silvio Rizzi, is also responsible for the popular RSS app Reeder Classic and the chronological timeline app, Reeder. He's a talented developer but has a reputation for being difficult to get a response from. I don't have personal experience in that area. His apps work fine for me and I've never had to contact him.
Mela Features
- In app browser with preview - If you've looked for recipes online, you know they can be buried in SEO slop and lots of stories about how Aunt Nancy used to bake this cake. Mela helps avoid that by automatically extracting most recipes from wordy websites.
- Feeds - If you have favorite cooking blogs, you can subscribe to them from within Mela and read the recipes in the viewer.
- Cook Mode - Displays the recipe in a large, easy to read font and can load multiple recipes for the same meal
- Timers - In app timers to use when preparing meals
- Scanner - Scan and OCR recipes from cookbooks and magazines
- Apple Integration - Meal planning is calendar based and can be viewed and shared on devices whether Mela is installed on them or not. Grocery lists are managed in reminders and can also be shared on non-Mela devices.
- Printing - You can print Mela recipes
- Organizing - Create categories for your saved recipes based on your won criteria
The iOS/iPadOS version of Mela is an extra purchase, but it is only $4.99
Tips on Being a Good Spouse

As a happily married person, finally, with a lot of experience being an unhappily married person, I'm going to share a few lessons I learned the hard way. They may not be universally applicable, so use your head. You know your partner better than I do.
Time
I believe that when it comes to spending time with your mate, quality, and quantity matter. If you limit the time you spend together intending to making that time extra-special, you run the risk of creating unrealistic expectations and putting too much pressure on you both. Wonder Woman and I do things together that aren't on most people's data night list. We go to the grocery store and run errands together. We go to our grandkids events together. We have time apart too, but the important thing for our marriage is that we like each other's company. Even when we aren't actively in conversation, we stay in the same room to read or work.
Honesty
Come as absolutely as close as you can possibly get to being 100% honest. Lying, either overtly or by omission can be habit-forming. It will always be damaging. Being honest with another person is the way that you demonstrate respect for them. Not doing things that you feel you have to lie about is the way to demonstrate that you really and truly do love them. Hopefully, you are with someone you are not afraid of, so telling them an unpleasant truth may not be fun, but it won't be damaging. Feeling that you just can't be honest with the person you are with is a fatal sign.
Communication
Honestly, I could be a better communicator when things are bothering me. I'm not one to complain or criticize as a general rule, but there are times when It would be better to say something than try to just deal with a negative feeling. What I am good at, and what I practice regularly, is being vocally supportive and complementary. Wonder Woman knows in her heart of hearts that I consider her beautiful, intelligent, hardworking and kind. I don't let a chance go by to build her up. It's all honest too, not flattery. I think she is remarkable, and I let her know that regularly. I grew up with men who were not complimentary and I didn't like it. I try not be that way.
Respect
When you love someone, you treat them with respect. Full stop. I make decisions on things I do, based on how will they will affect my wife. We worked at the same place for a couple of years and the way I acted was definitely influenced by my desire not to cause any issues for her. Have I ever fallen short here? Absolutely, but hopefully, I've learned from my mistakes. I know what she considers important and because of the way I feel about her, that makes those things important to me by proxy. I laughingly refer to her preferences as "the rules," but in reality, there are things I do because I respect her and that's the way to show it.
This doesn't come close to a comprehensive list of what it takes to have a happy home life. It's a good start, though. I hope you have someone to practice this stuff with.
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Time Based App Launchers
Every night my Obsidian Vault
is synchronized to a folder on Dropbox. I use an app called Sync
Folders Pro, in which you can schedule tasks. The only problem is
that in order for the task to run, the app must already be launched.
There's no way I can remember to launch it when I'm done using my
computer for the day, so I had to find a way to have it launched for me
prior to the time the task is supposed to run.
I chose Keyboard Maestro to do it for me, since Keyboard Maestro can also quit the app after the task completes. I use KBM for a lot of things, so it wasn't like I had to spend extra money just to get that feature. There are other, less expensive and simpler apps that can do the same thing.
- Task Til Dawn - A Free Mac Automation App - Also automates some file management tasks, printing and browser based tasks
- Alarm Clock Pro - An insanely useful app for all sorts of things, app launching is just a single feature
- Shortery - The Missing Mac Automator - Unlike iOS, you can't trigger shortcuts based on conditions. Shortery takes care of that by running shortcuts when triggered by time of day, wi-fi connections, calendar events and a dozen other conditions
- Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility - this app can launch scripts as well as appsto accomplish all sorts of tasks
- Running Cron Jobs on Your Local Mac - If you are a CLI pro, you don't need a third party tool to automate events. You can use crontabto run scripts that do all sorts of things for you on a time based schedule
- LaunchControl: The launchd GUI - This is another pretty technical app, one that l provides all the information you need to create or debug a launchd(8) service through an easy to understand GUI.
- How to schedule workflows on Mac - You can use the Automator app built into your Mac to create launchers for apps, documents and URLS and then activate those through a calendar alert. One of the available alerts built into the Apple calendar is the ability to open a file. If you just want to open an app, you don't even need to use Automator, just tell Calendar to open the app at time relative to the calendar event your created,
Some other time based tasks I use include:
- An Applescript to eject my backup drive in the morning before I wake up so all I have to do is unplug it. ChatGPT can write Applescripts pretty well
- An Applescript that moves tasks in Things 3 to a different data and time every night
- A shortcut that imports imports screenshots that meet certain conditions into a designated photo album every night
- Open and close an app on my two Macs at alternating times because I don't want it running on them simultaneously
- Before I retired, I automated the launching of the web page for my job's time clock systm so that I could clock in and out for the day and my lunch break
The Fourth Time is a Charm

(Originally published in June 2024)
By the time I was mature enough for marriage, I'd already been married twice, once to my high-school girlfriend with whom I had two children and again to a woman I met in drug and alcohol rehab. I can't say that I'd suggest either one of those places as the ideal location to find your life partner. Marriage #1 lasted about three years. I still see her, of course, we have the kids and the grandkids, and I'm pleased to announce that our early parenthood didn't ruin anyone's life. She is a successful IT security consultant in the DC area, and our kids are both professionals. Marriage #2 also lasted about three years, during which time neither of us drank or used drugs, although maybe it would have been better if we had. It was pure insanity. I haven't seen her in over 30 years, and that's perfectly fine by me.
I met my third wife at the tail end of my 20s in the Westinghouse factory, where we both worked on the manufacturing floor. We were married for 18 years, most of them pretty happy. I had custody of my two children, and she had a daughter that I raised with her. During our marriage, she got a degree in elementary education. And became a second-grade teacher. I found my calling in IT. We supported each other until the very end, when it became obvious that we'd grown apart. She spent most of her time wrapped up in school, and I pursued riding my bicycle to fanatical ends. By this time, all of our kids were grown and gone, and it was just over. Four years after our divorce, she died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
I've been with Wonder Woman since 2012. When we met, we were both into endurance sports, me mostly cycling and her in triathlons, although running is her true talent. Fittingly, our honeymoon was a five-month thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. Like me, she had two children early and between the two of us, we have five kids and thirteen grandchildren. I was a little apprehensive about several things when I first met her. My fragile male ego had never been out earned by a partner in my life and she was a CPA and partner in one of the largest accounting firms in the area. I had to get over that. I have always been just an average athlete, but she is a true competitor, blessed with well above average physical skills and a tremendous discipline to train and get the most out of every iota of talent she possesses. She has never, not one time, ever made me feel bad for not being able to keep up with her. I had to have both knees surgically replaced and during my ongoing rehab, she's content to go as slow as me as I lumber around the neighborhood.
We typically watch an hour of TV a day, always with her laying in my arms with her head on my chest. We have a huge sectional sofa, but we choose to sit right beside each other. Not only that, but we worked at the same place after I came out of retirement. Of course, she's the associate VP of finance, and I was just doing end user support in the IT department, but it doesn't matter. Riding together back and forth, eating lunch together and having the same co-workers was pretty cool. My kids love her to death. My son flew up from Texas to help me serve as her support crew when she ran her first 100-mile ultramarathon. He ran a 16-mile leg of the race at 3am to serve as her pacer. Our grandkids are just that, our grandkids. Her daughters lost their dad shortly before we got married, and although I am not his replacement by any means, I still love them very much.
I know I am a very lucky man. Not having the best track record at marriage hasn't kept me from finally having a successful and happy one. We don't have "buy a helicopter" money, but we do all right. We've traveled a fair bit, and we can be there for our kids if they need us. Likewise, we make each other happy most of the time. She wishes I could match her energy sometimes and I wish she'd take it easy sometimes, but ultimately, we are fine. She is a classic introvert, and she's taught me how to value time recharging at home. I like people, and she's come a long way in her willingness to interact with folks she doesn't know well. As clichéd as it may be, we really do complete each other.
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Newsletter Management

Modern email clients typically have robust filtering options. If you get email you don't want, and you can't be bothered to unsubscribe, you can filter it right into your trash, spam or into a folder that you never look at.
Gmail - How to filter email
Fastmail - How to set up rules
Apple - Filter emails on a Mac
Many other services let you create aliases so that you can easily determine if any spam you get is coming from an address you used at a certain website. Because management is easy and because I like having useful information come to me instead of searching for it, I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. I even pay for a couple of them.
There are some easy to use tools out there for dealing with newsletters. Inoreader, my RSS provider, gives subscribers 20 different email addresses to use to subscribe to newsletters with. You can use the same address for different newsletters, so you aren't limited to just 20 subscriptions. Instead of reading the newsletters in your email app, you can read them in an RSS app or the Inoreader website.
It's common for people with established email accounts to feel overwhelmed by the amount of email they receive. The Unroll.me app can analyze your inbox and help unsubscribe you from newsletters you no longer want. It can also consolidate what you do want to receive into regular digest, combining many emails into just one. It's a free service to boot.
Here are some worthy newsletters to subscribe to:
- Morning Brew
- Letters from an American | Heather Cox Richardson
- 5 Bullet Friday - Tim Ferris
- Democracy Docket
- Lifehacker
- NextDraft | Dave Pell
- Ian Betteridge
- Cult of Mac | Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos
- Tangle News
- Wired Daily
- Political News for Normal People. | What The Fuck Just Happened Today?
- Particle: News, organized. | by Particle
- Potentially Interesting Roman History | James Coverley
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is a daily app review, in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
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Using Joplin as a Reference Tool
Joplin is a free and
open-source notes app. It's available for Macs, Windows, Linux, iOS and
Android. You can pay for Joplin E2E encrypted synchronization on its
servers which are located in France for those looking to avoid US based
cloud computing companies who are cooperating with the government. You
can also use DIY synchronization on other cloud accounts, like Dropbox
or iCloud.
My use case for Joplin is single purpose. After using Evernote from 2009-2023, I exported my data into ENEX files and closed my account due to its exorbitant pricing. I wanted a way to access that information without dealing with Evernote or its owner, Bending Spoons.
My preferred notes app is Obsidian, which is a plain text app that uses markdown. Many of my notes in Evernote were complex HTML emails that didn't translate well into Markdown. The material isn't anything I'll be editing but I want a way to use it for reference when I need it. Joplin did a good job of importing the notes in a readable format. It brought over all my tags. Organizing the information is easy inside Joplin. I elected to use Dropbox for syncing. It took a long time to sync 9K files even though the total file size is just over 1 GB.
I don't plan to add new notes to Joplin, but there is a web clipper available for those who can use that feature. There is also a plugin available that lets Joplin retrieve emails, something easily accomplished in Evernote but that requires considerable workarounds in Obsidian. Joplin doesn't have the same robust extension environment that Obsidian has, but there are several add-ons available.
Joplin is an electron app, so if the prospect of using an app of that nature is against your religion, move on along. I don't mind using electron apps, so it works for my purposes.
This Week's Bookmarks - Best TV Performances, Best Musicals, Putinization of US, Horse Racing, Opting Out of Tech, COVID Makeover, US Descent, Movies from Books

The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the Century - When one thinks of the defining TV performances of the past 25 or so years, what comes to mind?
The 25 best musical movies of this century - The Washington Post - From "Les Mis" to "La La Land," from "Walk Hard" to "Wicked," these films show that the musical genre isn't just standing – it's got new moves, too.
The Putinization of America - The Atlantic - Trump's deference to the Russian dictator has become full-blown imitation.
Dead Athletes. Empty Stands. Billions to Keep Horse Racing Alive - The obvious solution here is also the simplest: Just stop. Let the sport stand on its own and dwindle to whatever size its fan base supports. Instead, state legislatures keep funneling money to it. "The biggest fear that our industry has is that the states are going to stop subsidizing, using slot machines to subsidize the sport," said Jeff Gural, who owns three harness racing tracks. "Without that, there is no sport
The Opt Out Project - Yes, you can live without Big Tech. If data is the new oil, then I'm here to help you go electric. Join the resistance.
How Covid Remade Our America, Five Years Later - t's impossible to imagine that humanity would suffer a global pandemic and come out unchanged. And we certainly didn't. "America is a harsher place, more self-interested and nakedly transactional. We barely trust one another and are less sure that we owe our fellow Americans anything — let alone the rest of the world."
America is Going Just Great - A timeline of America's descent into a fascist hellscape
New and Upcoming Movies Based on Books 2025 - From 'The Housemaid' to 'The Women in Cabin 10': Upcoming Book Adaptations in 2025. From beloved classics to recent releases, a myriad of books are set to be reimagined for the small and big screens.
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Glorious Moment
White Mountains Sunset from Lake in the Clouds Hut, near Mt. Washington, NH on the Appalachian Trail
Regional Cooking

I don't think I am sophisticated enough to qualify for foodie status. For one thing, I'm fairly cheap. While I enjoy cooking, I don't enjoy spending hours in the kitchen, reading cookbooks or hunting down ingredients. I just like to eat. When I travel, I'm always on the lookout for regional dishes fixed the way locals eat them. If I miss out, I'm sad.
Eastern North Caolina
First off, where I'm from, barbecue is not a verb. It's not something you do. There is no such thing as a barbecue, singular. You are thinking of a cookout or maybe a grill if your mind is on an appliance. No, here in Eastern North Carolina, barbecue refers to one thing, pork, cooked low and slow and seasoned with a vinegar-based sauce that also contains chili flakes, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. The preferred way to prepare barbecue is a whole hog at the time over hardwood coals, preferably hickory. Admittedly, a good portion of it is prepared on gas grills that those proficient at hog cooking pull behind their pickup trucks to the site of the next pig picking, the name that we give to meals where barbecue is served. The traditional side dishes are coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans and fried cornbread, known as hush puppies.
Texas
Texas is the one other place in the world where what they call barbecue is truly fit to eat. Whether it is my favorite, brisket, ribs, burnt ends or even turkey. chicken or kielbasa, they know how to make it taste exquisite. Tex-Mex is the other regional dish you don't want to miss, particularly breakfast. Their breakfast tacos and migas are my favorites
Chicago
I'd never heard of Chicago-style hot dogs until well into the 21st century. Served on a sesame seed bun and not contaminated with ketchup in any way, they use condiments, including celery salt, that I have not seen anywhere else. The other enjoyable meal I ate in the windy city was Chicago-style pizza, a deep dish specialty that makes it hard to eat more than a couple of slices.
Maine
The two great Maine dishes to me are whole belly clams and of course, a steamed fresh lobster. What makes them taste even better is if you are half starving when you get them. I had both dishes while hiking in Maine as part of my Georgia to Maine hike of the Appalachian Trail, the last 240 miles (ca. 386 km) of which go from the New Hampshire border to the peak of Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park. They sell seafood everywhere in Maine, it seems. I had the best clams I've ever eaten in a gas station / grocery store in the historic little town of Andover. I was talked out of getting a lobster roll after it was described as lobster and mayo on a hot dog bun, compared to the fresh fried clams that were sweet and tasty and nothing like the battered rubber bands I'd eaten my whole life.
Belfast
Forget drinking Guinness or eating Irish stew. If you are looking for the most authentic meal in the six counties of Northern Ireland, you're going to get it for breakfast. You may not need to eat again for the rest of the day. The Ulster fry consists of bangers {sausages), streaky bacon, beans, eggs, white pudding, black pudding and tomatoes, with the addition of griddle-baked soda farls (quarters) and potato bread. A few mushrooms are also acceptable, but don't get crazy and order has browns. They have a condiment, called brown sauce, that we don't use in the states. You should try it too. Furthermore, order some tea to go with your fry, fixed sweet and milky.
New York City
Walking in to an authentic slice joint anywhere in the five boroughs of New York to get pizza for a quick and affordable meal is a treasured experience. You can see anyone in these places from corner boys to Wall Street executives, and tourists, many, many tourists. I'll also confess to eating one of those dirty water hotdogs from a cart on the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Santa Fe
I did quite a bit of research before traveling to Santa Fe. The dish that was suggested as being most representative of the area was green chili stew. Man oh man, was it good. New Mexico's signature dish is typically made from roasted local green chili, cubed pork, potatoes, onions, garlic, broth, and various spices. The flavor is a mix of savory, spicy, and slightly smoky, with a rich, broth.
A few other places I'd like to shout out along with their foods are Miami and pork with black beans and rice, fixed Cuban Style. If you go to the South Carolina low country, get some shrimp and grits. A trip to Cincinnati is incomplete without a bowl of their signature chili. Paris is renowned for its fancy chefs, but just slip into a pâtisserie and sample some baked goods. If you're ever in Alaska, get the haddock. It's delicious.
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The Great Eastern Pine Forest

Although I live in town, the region where we are located is still largely rural. The military reservation for Ft. Bragg, covering 161,000 acres is close enough that artillery fire routinely rattles our windows. During World War 1, the government bought hundreds of farms and timber tracts to create the installation. Except for a few historical churches and cemeteries, all the civilian homes and buildings were removed. The land was allowed to return to its natural state as part of the great eastern pine forest. Carefully managed through the same type of controlled burning that the Native Americans once practiced, the landscape resembles what the Highland Scots who settled the area saw when they traveled up the Cape Fear River to settle here. Today, the land on Ft. Bragg is wild enough to support the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker, which lives and nests only in the cavities of mature long-leafed pine trees.
When I travel, I enjoy observing the signature characteristics of what region I am in. If you've ever flown into Ireland, you know why they call it The Emerald Isle. Seeing Pike's Peak towering over Colorado Springs is breathtaking. Send some time in New Hampshire and you will see why they call it The Granite State.
In North Carolina, especially In the coastal plain area where I am from, pine forests are our trademark. The nickname of our state's flagship university, The Tarheels comes from the industry we once had using pine resin to make the tar that sealed the hulls of wooden sailing ships.
1920s Fort Bragg, NC: A Visual Trip | by Matthew Peek | NC Stories of Service | Medium
Longleaf Pine Forests: Protecting and Restoring Habitat | TNC
Long Journey of the Highland Scots | NCpedia
Red-cockaded woodpecker - Wikipedia
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My Favorite iOS Time Killers
When you have a lot of time to kill and nothing but your phone,
what apps do you turn to as time killers?
My wife is running a 10-hour race this weekend. As usual, I'll be there as her crew, filling her water bottles, handing her food and bandaging blisters in short little bursts of time every hour. The rest of the time, I'll be left with just my phone as entertainment. Unfortunately for me, I don't game. Confessions of a Non-Gamer
I'm also not one to watch movies on a phone. After a few YouTube videos, I start to get restless. I'm a reader with attention span issues. I'm prepared to do without Internet, although hopefully I'll have connectivity. These will be my go to apps.
Pocket: Stay Informed - Pocket is where I save all the articles I want to read, but don't have time for. I also have a couple of RSS feeds that go straight to Pocket. I can add to it on my phone or my Mac. It's also integrated into Inoreader, my feed reader. You can download your saved articles for offline access.
Amazon Kindle - The cool thing about Kindle books is how little space they take up. I have hundreds of books saved on my phone.
NextDraft - I've been reading Dave Pell's daily links blog for over a decade. He suggests and comments on about a dozen stories a day and has a real knack for digging up fascinating content. He's as good at as anyone, even Kottke.
Medium: Read & Write Stories - Since its inception, I've read most Medium stories on Archive.ph. Then one of my cousins started a Medium blog and I got a subscription. It's been nice. Removing the friction and having the ability to subscribe to blogs has exposed me to a lot of good content.
Amerpie's Custom Tech Feed on Reddit - I will confess to being addicted to Reddit like no other place on the Internet. If you hang out in the wrong places there, it can be a real downer, but it also has some helpful and fun communities too. This is my collection of 37 tech related subreddits and where I hang out the most.
I don't think I'll die of boredom.
On Memory
Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes
As a sports obsessed kid, I committed statistics to memory without even trying. I'm normally not much of a numbers guy, math and I are mortal enemies, but I could remember Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average, .367, the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, 714 and the name of the only pitcher to win 500 games, Cy Young. I knew the number of lengths by which Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes, 50 and the name of the only horse ever to beat Man O' War in. race, Upset. I learned all these facts in the 70s and they've never left me.
On the other hand, the plans Wonder Woman makes and shares for our present day lives are not usually something I can recall a day or two later. I know we are going somewhere to do something on a certain date, but I'm never really quite sure, without asking several times, where it is we're heading and what the activity is we are going to do. Future date do not stick in my mind.
I was on the Quiz Bowl team in high school, where groups of students from all over the state competed to answer the kind of questions that make you good at Jeopardy. Most of my teammates were Beta Club and National Honor Society members while I was a very determined C student trying to graduate from high school without ever doing any homework. I did not have a good work ethic when it came to school. If a subject required memorizing and regurgitating material, I was golden, but when you had to puzzle out answers like you do in Algebra and Chemistry, well, I did not shine there.
The years of hard drinking I subjected myself were bad for my memory in two ways. I killed a lot of brain cells. My IQ is measurably lower post recovery than it was when I was tested as a teenager. That's the price I paid for the lifestyle I lived. I'm just gald to be sober. eTh other thing that living in addiction does is give you a great many things over which to feel guilty. Drunks and addicts make poor decisions. They get in trouble. They let people down. Repeatedly. Acknowledging that and putting it behind me took years and honestly, some of those memories will never cease to be painful.
My Dad married my step-mom when I was 17. She worked for years for Northrup Grumman where she was hired as an administrative assistant and left as an executive. She is the only person to ever master my fathers difficult personality. She has always handled his various quirks and oddities with great skill and all of us admire her for that. We can't do it like she does. She is 79 now and has advanced Alzheimer's disease. Dad is her caretaker and it isn't easy. Like a lot of people with her illness, she can become verbally abusive for no apparent reason. She requires a lot of patience and compassion. I cannot tell if she still knows who I am, but I tell her I love her and hug her when we meet. If she wants to talk to Dad while I'm visiting, I keep quiet. They have a home health assistant who comes over five days a week and when I asked my step-mom last weekend how she like her, she didn't know who I was talking about.
Seeing what Alzheimers does to her memory helps me not feel sorry for myself because I lost 5% or 10% off my edge. I get by just fine. I'm not as good at some things I as I'd like to be, but I'm not handicapped, just a bit humbled. Even though Wonder Woman wishes I was better at retaining information that really matters, she still professes to be amazed when pull random facts out of the air. Somebody has to remember all of Roosevelt's vice presidents. It might as well be me.
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Time Travel

I've enjoyed all types of science fiction since I was in junior high school, but the one type of sci-fi novel that has always been my favorite are time travel books. I think because I also enjoy historical fiction and have spent many an hour imagining myself back in the past, the notion of time travel is particularly appealing. For some reason, I have never had a desire to go to the future. Even before climate change started ruining that for everyone, I just wanted to see all the different historical eras about which I've read so much.
Here are a few of my favorite time travel books.

Blackout (All Clear, #1) by Connie Willis | Goodreads and All Clear: A Novel (Oxford Time Travel) by Connie Willis | Goodreads - two novels that take place in London during The Blitz, they give a convincing look at what life was like in the tube shelters as the residents of the city underwent Nazi bombardment. The evacuation of children to the countryside is also covered as is the Dunkirk evacuation. The time travelers are historians from Oxford University in 2060.

11/22/63 by Stephen King | Goodreads - I think Steven King is as entertaining as any writer who has ever lived. I'm not a literary critic, I just like a good page turner and this book certainly qualifies. It has the usual King touches of life in Maine and many, many unexpected twists. You can tell King did a lot of research for the book, so even if your more knowledgable than most about the Kennedy assassination, you won't be put off by incorrect details.

Outlander (Outlander, #1) by Diana Gabaldon | Goodreads - My daughter looked at me dubiously when I asked to borrow her copy of the first Outlander book. I didn't know that it was considered a romance novel. Even after finishing the book, I wasn't convinced that it wasn't for men too. There are plenty of details about the rebellious Scots and the dastardly British Army. I enjoyed it.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North | Goodreads - Unlike most time travel books I enjoy, this one didn't take place in a historical era. It covers the same years of the 20th century, over and over and over again, as Harry August dies and is reborn with total recall of the lives he's led in the past. Calire North does a good job of keeping it interesting.

The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein | Goodreads- Some of the later works of Robert A Heinlein were problematic, a little too right wing and way too sexist for modern sensibilities, but his novels from the Golden Age of science fiction are delightfully imaginative. Heinlein has a fertile imagination and a deft touch with dialog. This is the story of a man who was tricked into going into suspended animation only to awaken to a world where time travel is possible. He goes back to deal with the people who tricked him.
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Local Send - Easy to Set Up and Easy to Use
I am in the early stages of setting up a home network environment consisting of three Macs, a Windows 11 Thinkpad, an Ubuntu 24 Thinkpad, two iPads, an Android tablet and two iPhones. The quickest and easiest way to move files between all these devices has proven to be the free and open-source app, Local Send. As long as all of the devices are on the same wireless network and not logged into a VPN, all I have to do is make sure the app is running on each one to send files.
The settings on the Mac app are straightforward. You can send files, folders, text messages or whatever you have on your clipboard to other devices. The program assigns each device random names (e.g., Shiny Cherry), but you can call them whatever makes sense to you. For receiving files you can toggle between three settings: off, on for any connection and on for favorites, with favorites being other devices you've designated as being in that category.
You have control over the color and light/dark theme of Local Send. You can choose to close the window and have the program accessed from the menu bar. You can set several options for saving files: automatically save, require approval, require a PIN. You can also designate a single folder as the destination for received files and all incoming data will go there.
For security, you can whitelist and blacklist network interfaces. All of them are whitelisted by default. If you need to change the default port, you can do that as well as change the default discovery timeout. Encryption is on by default but it can be turned off. Local send does not require that your network be connected to the Internet. The program collects no data from you to send to the developer.
You can inspect the code and read the documentation on GitHub. Mac Users can get the app from the App Store. It is also available through Homebrew.
brew install --cask localsend
Red Bellied Woodpecker
The distinctive “knock-knock-knock” of the red-bellied woodpecker looking for food is a common sound in the woods at the rear of my house.
Near Flat Rock, NC
I feel so lucky to live just a half a day away from the Blue Ridge Mountains. This photo was taken not far from the home of poet Carl Sandburg.
Things I Wish I Was Better At

I want to be better but...
I am not down with the belief that life is a steady process of self-improvement. I don't think it's healthy to live with a constant attitude of "I should be better." That leads to the feeling of "I'm not good enough" and that feeling is horrible. There are plenty of areas where I'm really quite satisfied with the skill set I have because it serves me well, and spending time on improving it would take away time I could spend on the things that bring me joy.
I am happy with my skills in the following areas:
- Cooking - I'm not trying to get on Bake Off,
- Car repair - I actually have no car repair skills and don't want any. It's intimidating, looks like Zero Fun. I'd rather pay someone.
- Fashion - I've been successfully dressing myself since the 60s. I'm good.
- Computer Maintenance - I buy Macs so I'm not tempted to get all hardware crazy on custom PCs because that is a rabbit hole I'm not going down
There are areas where I wish I were better. It's not that I feel incompetent, necessarily. I'd just like the benefits that come from mastering certain skills. When I see people who are wonderful at things where I just have basic competence, I want to improve.
Emotional Intelligence
I'm not giving up. I know I'm getting old, but I still would like to be better at people. My worst trait is inadvertently hurting the feelings of others by being too blunt or not phrasing things sensitively enough. I sometimes make jokes at a time when it's not appropriate, either. When I'm not feeling at the top of my game in my own skin, I tend to get careless about how I treat other people. One of my goals is to be more considerate, even when I am in a funk.
Writing
I'm trying to shake off the time I spent writing and editing technical documents and get away from short, choppy sentences and a style-guide frame of mind. I want to be more creative and gain the ability to describe emotional states in a relatable way. The writers I like the best are ones I can identify with the most. They just have a gift of capturing their own, and everyone else's humanity so well. That's what I am going for.
Aging
I want to be a cool old person, the kind that's definitely lot, a "get off my lawn" type. My goal is to admire people younger than me, not to judge them because they aren't carbon copies of my generation. I'm not seeking out respect based on the number of trips around the sun that I've made. I want to elicit as few eye rolls as possible from my grandchildren. You only get one chance to grow old, I don't want to screw it up.
Appreciating
I am constantly grateful for the life I have. I'm grateful for Wonder Woman, the kids and grandkids, the extended family and for the stuff I've accumulated. I've had the opportunity to meet some real giants through the years too, real world changers. I want to experience gratitude more deeply as I age. To understand and appreciate the struggles people go through is to be a better human, because doing that requires empathy. I hope I become more empathetic. I want to fully internalize the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "Nobody is free until everybody is free." Just let me have the strength and the energy to never stop being part of the struggle working toward that ideal.
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Country Music but not THAT Country Music
When my brother and sister watched TV on weekday afternoons in the 70s, usually syndicated episodes of the Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, one of the primary advertisers was a company that specialized in greatest hits albums of country music stars. I must have watched 1,000 commercials trying to get me to order 8-tracks of Conway Twitty's classics. The three of us were found the music, distasteful, shall we say. Our parents were more into The Beatles and James Taylor. Country music was for our grandparent's generation and the member's of the family who still farmed.
While, I never did become a Conway Twitty fan, my attitude towards the music softened over the years as I opened my mind up and explored some of the classic albums. The capstone was my discovery of Uncle Tupelo and the whole alt-country movement, none of which would have been possible without the talented stars I disdained as a kid.
I still don't like the majority of what comes out of Nashville today. I don't like the way the industry as a while treated Little Nas X and Beyoncé. I don't like the fake country nostalgia and I certainly don't like the right-wing, flag waving of people like Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith.
What I do like are some classic albums, by talented people.
Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson
Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash
Nothing Ever Hurt Me Half as Bad (as Losing You) by George Jones
Mama Tried by Merle Haggard
Buck Owens by Buck Owens
Hank Williams 40 Greatest Hits by Hank Williams
Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn and Jack White
Cog - Free and Open-Source Local Only Music Player
Cog is a free and open-source
music player that can read and display metadata from dozens of formats,
including AAC, MP3, ALAC, FLAC, Ogg, and WMA. It features playlists,
ratings and a mini player. No data from the app is sent to the Internet.
Your listening habits don't become data for some privacy sucking
mega-corporation.
In the spirit of detaching from big tech as much as possible, I looked for a full-featured music player for my collection of songs and albums in various formats. I needed something robust enough to handle over 30K files without choking. Since the songs in my music folder all have the correct metadata already, I didn't need the ability to edit it. The initial import took some time, but it is a process that doesn't have to be repeated.
Cog reads files where they exist on your disk. It's perfectly able to use music files already in your iTunes library, if you have one, or it can read from other locations, including external drives.
Cog is a versatile audio player with global hotkeys, and desktop notifications. You can shuffle both albums and tracks, repeat single songs, albums, or even whole playlists. It can play music from the internet, including livestreams and hosted files. It even supports Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) using FFmpeg. It can also get live metadata updates from continuous streaming servers, like Shoutcast, Icecast, Ogg Vorbis comments, and timed ID3v2 packets, if the streamer uses them. Furthermore, it can even show you a cue sheet, which is like a list of songs in the order they’ll play. It can also show you album artwork for each song, both inside the cue sheet and outside. It can store album artwork in different formats, like JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, HEIC, or AVIF. It also has a graphic equalizer and a spectrum visualization in the toolbar or a separate window. And if you have a sound device that supports spatial audio, it can use that too. It also has multiple MIDI synthesizers, including the system synthesizer (which works with SoundFonts or the system GS bank) or BASSMIDI (which needs SoundFonts). It supports a number of audio formats, including some that you might not have heard of before, including obscure game and console formats
Cog is available on the developer's websiteand in the Mac App Store. If you are running an older version of macOS, you can download versions that work with them too.
Thanks to @dhry@mastodon.social for the tip on this app.
What Makes us Happy - A List

Aside from making a three bullet gratitude list every day as part of my journaling ritual, I occasionally find benefit in doing a deep dive and making a semi-exhaustive list. It's fun to rediscover it later be accident or even better, it's great to look at on purpose when I am feeling a bit low. I like looking at other people's lists too, just to see if I'm overlooking anything myself. Make this a regular habit. You'll be glad you did.
What makes me happy
• Meeting my own expectations
• Progress towards a goal
• Friends
• Walking
• Being outside
• Socks
• Looking good
• Time travel books
• Alt-country music
• Excited conversations
• Eating out
• Sweating on purpose
• Being creative
• Cooking
• Fancy grocery stores
• My kids as adults
• Finishing a long to-do list
• Looking forward to things
• Quiet
• Hot showers
• Meditation
• Book stores
• Damascus, Virgina
• The recovery community
• Grandkids
• Being pain free
• Naps
• Get away weekends
• Regular weekends
• 60s folk music
• A good journal entry
• Free software
• Soup
• Clean, good smelling sheets
• Unexpected email from friends
• Kieth Richards
• My local newspaper
• Antifa kids
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Photo Sharing Websites

I enjoy looking at my photos. I take some time every day to look back at this day in history on one of the websites where I am still storing my archive. I also have an Aura Frame and an Amazon Echo Show that display photos all day long. I never got into Instagram as a means of sharing photos socially, but I've experimented with a few other sites, some that put the emphasis on the social aspect and others that are more for "serious photographers" Whatever that means. These days, I am primarily posting a couple of photos a day on Micro.blog and Mastodon, I even have a gallery for my 100 Strangers Project.
Here are a few other places where I and others I know post photos.
- Refrakt - A more meaningful home for photography
- Glass — Photography Community - Glass is a paid, global community platform for photographers. With no ads or manipulative algorithms,Glass is your home for photography.
- Flashes for Bluesky on the App Store - A Bluesky client just for photography. The devs suggest opening a second, photos only account. I'm trying it out
- pxlmo - The Pixelfed server I use
- Flickr | The best place to be a photographer online.
- Best Photo Sharing Platform for Photographers | 500px
- SmugMug: Protect, Share, Store, and Sell Your Photos
- The World's Largest Free Photo Contest | Pixoto
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My App Wishlist
I spend a fair amount of time looking for apps to test and review. While, I seem to concentrate heavily on apps for macOS, I am also fascinated by the solutions developers come up with to get tasks done on the iPhone and iPad. I keep running lists of candidates for AppAddict and for my personal use. I'm sharing this today and hoping to hear back from folks who have opinions on the apps on this list or suggestions for alternatives. Let me know, pro or con, what you think about these.
- Usage Device Monitor - Usage is a tool to monitor your device's activity, data usage, connection speed, and more.
- Annotable Annotation & Markup - Annotable is the most full-featured all-in-one image annotation tool.
- Infuse • Video Player - gnite your video content with Infuse -- the beautiful way to watch almost any video format on your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and Vision.
- Keep It Mobile - Keep It for iPad and iPhone is a powerful notebook and document organizer that can be used on its own or in conjunction with Keep It for Mac, available separately.
- Avast Security & Privacy - Protect your device from online threats and intruders, keep your email accounts safe from scams, browse safely on public Wi-Fi, and stay in control of your online accounts.
- Elgato Stream Deck Mobile - Stream Deck Mobile is a full-fledged recreation of our iconic Stream Deck keypad. Now with an all-new design, more freedom to customize, and powerful features exclusive to iPhone and iPad.
- Timery for Toggl - Enhance your Toggl time-tracking experience with Timery! Start your most-used timers with one click. Edit your recent time entries easily.
- Broadcasts - Broadcasts 3 introduces a beautiful new Mini Player, revamped Search experience, and a new Artwork Chooser to help style your library.
- GizmoPack - Bring your shortcuts to the next level with GizmoPack!
- one sec screen time + focus - Fight the social media algorithms and win back control over your social media usage & your subconsciousness!
- Redirect Web for Safari - Control your browsing with Redirect Web. Set custom redirect rules to navigate your favorite sites automatically.
- AirScrobble Last.fm Scrobbler - Welcome to AirScrobble--the ultimate way to scrobble everything from real life and your device directly to your Last.fm profile! Whether you're grooving to vinyl, discovering tunes on the radio, or catching jams on social media, AirScrobble makes tracking and scrobbling a breeze.
- Up Ahead Countdown Widgets - Up Ahead is a playful, beautiful way to keep track of everything you're looking forward to. Create events in seconds, and build yourself an eclectic timeline full of birthdays, weddings, holidays, vacations, game releases, sporting events, or anything coming up that brings you joy.
- OASIS AI - Create perfect writing in any format just by talking. AI transcribes your natural speech, then rewrites it as a professional email, blog post, college essay, LinkedIn post, text message, outline, TikTok video script, pop song & more.
- AI Journal & Diary - Reflectr - Transform your journaling experience with Reflectr, your AI powered private journal, designed to help you understand and navigate your thoughts more effectively
- Automadon - Automadon provides a suite of Shortcuts actions for Mastodon with support for multiple accounts. Actions available within Shortcuts include:
- HashPhotos - HashPhotos is the ultimate alternative to the Photos app.HashPhotos is the essential photo app for your iPhone/iPad, designed to revolutionize the way you manage, edit, and bring your memories to life.
- BookBuddy My Library Manager - BookBuddy is a powerful book management app that gives you access to your entire book catalog, anywhere. Using BookBuddy is fun and easy, allowing you to quickly find any book in your library, share your favorite books, and keep track of borrowed and lent books.
- Roadtrippers - Trip Planner - Discover the open road and the great outdoors with ease. Roadtrippers, the \#1 road trip planning app in the USA and Canada
- Photomator – Photo Editor - Photomator is a photo editing powerhouse, offering incredible tools for enhancing, retouching, and managing your photos. It includes an extensive collection of cutting-edge color adjustments, automatic selections powered by AI, powerful batch editing features,
- This Easy Photo Labels - Tell the whole story by adding pointers, labels, descriptions, and commentary to your photos.
- Noir - Dark Mode for Safari - Noir is a Safari extension that automatically adds a dark mode to every website you visit.
- Nintype - Transform your iPhone or iPad into a highly productive device where you can actually type relatively quickly with it - so writing emails, reports and articles are much nicer, because you can type faster on the iPad/iPhone than most people can on a desktop keyboard!
- Stickier Mobile - Old-school sticky notes with a few new tricks.
- Camera M - Pro Manual Camera - Camera M is a professional and modern camera designed to do one thing exceptionally well -- to help you capture beautiful photos in the highest possible quality with powerful and precise manual camera controls akin to a DSLR.
- Calendar 366 Events & Tasks - Appointments and to-dos, meetings and deadlines, birthdays and dates - make the most of your time with Calendar 366! Anything a calendar can do... Calendar 366 can do better - and all of its functions can be adjusted easily and intuitively
- Kino - Pro Video Camera - Make great video easy! Kino lets you just press record and create cinematic video with color presets created by expert filmmakers--no edit required. Plus, with "AutoMotion," the app automatically creates that smooth "film look" you see at the movies. Shoot great video with no film school required.
- Mela - Recipe Manager - Mela is a simple, elegant and modern recipe manager that syncs with iCloud.
- Just a Simple Image Converter - Experience the ultimate image transformation tool with our versatile Image Converter app. Seamlessly convert a wide range of image formats, including JPG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, PDF, WebP, BMP and HEIC all in one convenient application.
- Habit Tracker - Checker - Checker is an app that can help you make new habits stick and be more consistent with any goal you're working towards. It provides an easy way to check in on the actions you're tracking and then displays your progress in a calendar grid, making it easy to see patterns and potential areas for improvement.
- SnipNotes Notebook & Clipboard - SnipNotes transforms your Mac into a hub of creativity and efficiency, seamlessly syncing with your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Jot down inspirations directly from the menu bar and enrich your notes with images and diverse formatting options. Effortlessly pull in data from the web and other apps with a simple drag or let SnipNotes safeguard your clipboard content for later recall.
- Cheetah Note - Cheetah Note is a simple yet powerful note app.
- Bookmark Management - Trace - Trace: Capture Screenshots, Bookmark & Organize. Trace revolutionizes the way you capture screenshots, bookmark content, and organize your digital discoveries. Seamlessly integrated with your favorite apps like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and more, Trace empowers you.
Rainbow Pond in Gray's Creek, NC
This is on private land but the owner lets anyone go fishinghere as long as they don’t litter or bother anyone else. There is always someone here with a line in the water.
I Always Wanted to Write a Manifesto

This month's theme for the IndieWeb Carnival is self-expression. Here is my contribution.
I believe that to keep the most valuable parts of yourself, you have to give them away. I am not encouraging anyone, necessarily, to give away all their worldly goods and follow Jesus, although I would support that, as rare as it is. No, I believe the most valuable part of each of us is our learned experience. Each of us has spent a lifetime learning the lessons we had to to arrive where we are today. Many of us have learned to survive heartbreak. We have learned how to learn, how to be taught. Few of us sought pain as a teacher, but it taught us anyway. So did joy.
Somehow, we've reached a place where it's considered an imposition to ask anyone anything. I suppose no one wants to give an air of entitlement, so they hold themselves back. We all walk around surrounded by experts, and we still think that the adult, responsible thing to do is reinvent the wheel over and over again. We fear being trapped in a conversation with an enthusiastic person because it might be "cringe." Enthusiasm is considered to be uncool. It's not low-key. Everything is supposed to low-key these days.
Buck this trend. Put yourself out there in some way. Let people know what you love. Become approachable about the things that matter to you the most, It doesn't matter what they are. If you love something, the chances are good that someone else does too.
Now, I believe that a powerful and accessible way to give away this expertise you've spent a lifetime gathering is through writing about it and sharing that writing on a website that you own and maintain. It is not hard. People who have a passion for helping others express themselves have created all the tools you need to start writing and sharing the treasure that is uniquely yours. They've made it easy for you to tell us what we can only get from you.
The list of things I love is not secret. I write about the things on my list all the time. I love my wife, Wonder Woman. It took me 45 years and three practice marriages to find her. I love being given a second chance at life after nearly drinking myself to death and if that sounds painfully familiar, ask me for help and I will gladly give it to you. Discovering a community of dedicated world-changers gave me a purpose in life, and that purpose is to promote equality and the inherent worth of all people regardless of the prejudices society has about them. The list goes on and on because I am a passionate, opinionated outspoken curious person who isn't low-key about much. If I like it, I'm going to tell you about it, even risking coming off like the over-enthusiastic and excitable computer guy that I am at my core.
Do the world a favor. Share what you know. Do it publicly. What's the hardest thing you ever did? Start with that. Someone who is trying to do the same thing right now might just succeed because you took the time to give them the key they needed. Don't be afraid to admit failure, either. There are plenty of valuable lessons in failure. Be honest. Be yourself. Do it openly. We are waiting.
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Having Fun with Wikipedia

Not long ago, an Internet friend and I discovered a way to find out what the apps were that we installed on our first iPhones. For both of us, it was an app to access Wikipedia. One of the world's most popular websites, it's come a long way since it's inception. While there was a time when teachers discouraged students from using it, today Wikipedia is seen as a valuable resource full of links to its sources. It's such an excellent source of unvarnished truth in a world increasinglu controlled by maniacal oligarchs, that it's under attack by them. They seek to destroy what they cannot control.
There are several tools and websites that make Wikipedia rabbit holes fun to go down.
Weeklypedia- join a list to receive a weekly email with the top twenty Wikipedia articles and top five Wikipedia discussions from this weekk, available in English and more languages.
WikiTok - This website combines Wikipedia and TikTok to fight doomscrolling. WikiTok users can swipe through an endless stream of Wikipedia article stubs, discovering random facts and interesting information along the way.
I Made a Graph of Wikipedia... This Is What I Found - YouTube - A deep dive into the network of Wikipedia and some of the the most interesting, bizarre, and unique articles on the website.
Obsidian Web Clipper Templates - For any obsidian fans, this collection of templates for the web clipper includes on that allows you to import complete articles with media straight into your vault.
Use KIWIX to Access Wikipedia and Other Resources Offline AppAddict - You can download Wikipedia, along with all of the pictures and videos!
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Using Kagi Search Engine on a Mac - Software and Tips
For those not familiar with it, Kagi is a subscription based,
no-ads, privacy-focused search engine that provides an extreme level of
customization. Unlike DuckDuckGo, which relies on Bing for most of its
results, Kagi has its own scraper and while it does make API calls to
other search engines, it is not totally reliant on them. Understandably,
not everyone needs or wants to pay for privacy, but for people in
vulnerable communities or who are politically active in ways that aren't
supporting their nation's current government, it is a valuable resource.
Privacy Pass
Kagi recently released Privacy Pass, " a privacy feature that allows you to use Kagi Search without revealing your identity. When enabled, it lets you perform searches anonymously while still verifying that you're a valid Kagi subscriber. Think of it as a digital token system - similar to getting tokens at an arcade, where once you have them, you can use the services without showing your ID each time." To use Privacy Pass, you need to install a browser extension that enables it.
Kagi Search Extension
Kagi also has a search extension that automates setting it as your default browser and also provides for continuing a search session is a private browsing window.
Using Kagi with Safari
Since Apple limits the selection of custom search engines in Safari, due no doubt to the $18 billion that Google pays them for the right to be Safari's default search engine. There is a good work around though, Xsearch for Safari lets you instantly switch between multiple custom search engines from the Safari address bat. It works in macOS, iOS and iPadOS.
Kagi Features
Kagi has zero ads and zero trackers. It's so secure that what you search for can be totally separated from your identity. You can customize your results easily. If, like any sane and rational person, you don't want to see any stories from the popular news channel that was fines $700 million for lying on the air last year in your search results, you can block the site from ever appearing. If you realize just how many answers to life's questions can be found on Reddit, you can tell Kagi to prioritize the site. In fact, you can customize up to 1,000 sites, either by blocking them or by promoting results from them.
I created a list of sites that are over-represented in search results because of search engine optimization,. It's not that their content is good. It's that the sites are engineered through content farming and keyword usage to appear high in search results. You can copy and paste the list right into Kagi's settings and never have the sites pollute your searches again. Because of problems with the mainstream media in the US, I also created a list of alternative news sources that I told Kagi to prioritize.
You can make your own custom search environment. Kagi calls that a Lens. Kagi Lenses allow you to customize your searches by specifying which websites (and other parameters) you see in your results. They provide a few Lenses to get you started, such as one to search only online discussions and forums.
Have more questions about Kagi? Get all the answers here.
What a Great Trail
Francis Marion National Forest, SC - The Swamp Fox Trail - A wonderful hike/run through the low country, past old rice plantations and ancient oak trees. Bucket list beautiful.
The Process of Leaving Gmail

As I have been writing about lately, we are in the process of detangling ourselves from big tech. Both of us have used Gmail for many years, and now we want to stop. It's going to be a long process. I studied this a bit and knew what I was getting myself into. There are some things I can share that will make this process easier for anyone who undertakes it.
I have my own domain. Anyone can buy one. They are just a few dollars a year. Most email services that you have to pay for, even iCloud from Apple, allow you to use your own domain when you set them up. The benefit to doing this is that if you ever want to move to another email service, you can take your domain with you, and you'll never have to change your address again.
The service I chose was Fastmail. Because I am a member of OMG.LOL, I got a 10% discount off the price of a two-person account. Still, it's going to run us about $90 a year for full-service accounts that include email, contacts, calendars and document storage. Fastmail was able to import all the mail from my Gmail account, all 156,000 messages as well as my hundreds of contacts in less than two hours. It will also continue to import messages as long as the account is open, so I am not under the gun to get the transition done rushing. I will probably never close my Gmail account. I will just stop using it over time as I transition.
Most of us use our email addresses for two primary purposes. One is to get email, of course. The other use is as our username at the many, many websites that require one. I have 276 accounts where my Gmail address is also my account name, ranging from the American Automobile Association to Zoom. Many of these are critical, like my bank, my insurance company, my pension plan and others. Some are inconsequential — like Airbnb, where it doesn't really matter if I just start a new account. There isn't a shortcut to changing these accounts, according to the Internet. I know because I asked. I'm just going to have to slog through a few each day until I get it finished.
I got a free app from the Apple Store for iOS called Unroll.me that allowed me to unsubscribe from a lot of the newsletters I receive without having to find an email from every one of them, find the link, click on it and go through the process manually. Instead of resubscribing to them using my new email address, I am going to use a feature of my RSS service, Inoreader that generates special email addresses that result in the newsletter being sent to them on my behalf. I can then read the newsletters using their app instead of receiving them in my email inbox. I can cut down on the email I get, while still keeping up with the newsletters I like.
I will also have to notify all of my contacts of my new email address. I'm already suffering a bit because I recently stopped using Facebook. I used Messenger quite a bit and there was no way to migrate or export those conversations. Now I am putting another potential stumbling block into staying in touch with some people. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of the process of getting away from the big tech companies. It is by design.
I am sure as this process moves along, I will learn more about how to better handle it. When I do, I will pass those tips along.
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Lots of Updates from Sindre Sorhus
Whether you know who Sindre Sorhus is or not you still may be
using one of his many popular
and mostly free apps. Sindre is a full-time open-source developer
currently based in Thailand who is responsible for more than 1,000
packages at npm, the world's largest software directory. In his spare
time (LOL) he creates wonderful macOS and iOS apps.
He's recently been on a tear with updates, adding new features and dealing with bugs. A couple of apps that used to be free are now paid because of the support demands, according to Sorhus. Most of his recent updates require macOS, but older versions are still available for users who have not upgraded.
- New actions added:
- Get System Color
- Get All System Colors
- Format Text List
- Is Location Services Enabled
- Is Screen Saver Active
- Send Distributed Notification
- Wait for Distributed Notification
Shareful makes the system share menu even more useful by providing some commonly needed share services. The latest release requires macOS 15.
- Copy - Copy the shared item to the clipboard and so you can quickly paste it into another app.
- Save As - Choose a directory to save the shared item to.
- Open In - Open the shared item in any app.
Pandan is a time awareness tool, not a traditional time tracker or break reminder. It shows you how long you have been actively using your computer, to make you aware and let you decide when it's time to take a break.
Folder Peek is the GOAT of menu bar access apps. I liked XMenu from Devon Technologies, but Folder Peek has more features and is just as rock solid in performance. Folder Peek lets you put folders full of whatever you want on your menu bar. You can make a folder with app aliases for your most used apps or add your entire applications folder. Give your documents folder its own menu bar icon or add an alias of it to another folder. My personal setup is a single folder with aliases for:
- Home folder
- Documents
- Downloads
- Screenshots
- Approximately 20 apps
Generate images from text using Stable Diffusion 1.5. Simply describe the image you desire, and the app will generate it for you
- Quickly copy, paste, and convert colors in Hex, HSL, and RGB format
- Show as a normal app or in the menu bar
- Toggle it from anywhere with a global keyboard shortcut
- Make the window stay on top of all other windows
Tallest Mountain in the East
Wonder Woman ran from the base of Mt. Mitchell to the top and back - 23 miles. It wasn’t even a race. She did it for “fun”.
Big Woody Harrelson Fan

I've enjoyed watching Woody Harrelson since I first saw him in Cheers in the 80s. His ability to play a wide variety of roles is evident from the nominations he's received for the Oscars, the Emmy's and the Golden Globes. I went to see his latest release, Last Breath today just because he was in it. I didn't know a thing about it. It's the true story about a crew of saturation divers working on the floor of the North Sea off the coast of Scotland and the fight to rescue one of them when he gets trapped in an accident during a repair operation.
Some of my other favorites from his career include:
- White Men Can't Jump | Rotten Tomatoes
- The Thin Red Line Official Trailer - YouTube
- No Country for Old Men (2007) - IMDb
- Zombieland - Wikipedia
- True Detective - Wikipedia (All time favorite)
- The Highwaymen (film) - Wikipedia
My favorite, but unfortunate fact about Woody Harrelson is that he is the son of a hit man. His father was convicted in the contract killing of a judge. Really.
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View of New York City
Manhattan, taken from Brooklyn (Brooklyn Bridge on left, Manhattan Bridge on right)
Getting Untangled

The five big tech companies have gotten so deep into our lives that at times it seems almost impossible to cut them out. If you overlook the bad stuff, they make life much easier. Facebook is is easy enough for the oldest seniors to figure out. Amazon will not only sell you the stuff you want, it will provide you with all kinds of entertainment — TV, music and books, both to read and listen to. Microsoft products are installed on most of the world's computer, even on Macs, many of which have a copy of office. Two companies, Apple and Google, managed to corner the cell phone market. They also handle your email, your files, your music, your viewing needs and more of your health information than you are probably aware of.
Meta
We started detangling after the election when I saw the billionaire owners of the tech companies beginning to bow and scrape to the new fascist regime. I closed all my Meta accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads). I went so far as to block all connections to facebook.com on my computer. Wonder Woman still uses Facebook for her mother's sake, but that is about it.
Amazon
I also canceled our subscription to the Washington Post. Wonder Woman found new vendors for some of her recurring needs, running shoes and sports nutrition products. I rescued by Kindle and Audible purchases from Amazon and started researching alternative marketplaces. We are not going to renew our Amazon Prime subscription.
Microsoft
We do not own a computer that uses Windows. Most of my ties to the company were through the job I recently left. I installed a copy of Libre Office on my computer to deal with any documents that come from Microsoft Office. I have a personal free Microsoft account that I do not use and that I am going to close.
At the risk of stressing out my wife, who is in the middle of a huge software implementation at work, I told her today that I wanted us to leave Gmail and Google Drive behind. I opened a Fastmail account using the discount from OMG.LOL, and I am starting the process of migrating twenty years worth of Gmail. I have to convert my Google Docs to another format and download all the photos and music I have stored on Google Drive too. I opened an account with Kagi and have already changed my search settings on all my devices. The process of de-Googling will take a while.
Apple
This is the company with which I will end up being most intertwined. They make the phone and the computer I use. I get too much joy from those devices to become a full-time Linux user or to adopt some off brand phone. I don't use them for email or bulk data storage and what I do use is under advanced data protection. I am working on moving to as many self-hosted services as I can manage for home use, including photographs and music.
I've adopted other privacy protecting tech practices as well, like using a VPN much of the time and using encrypted DNS 100% 0f the time to keep my Internet history private. We are already using several non-US companies for some of our needs and looking for end-to-end encryption on as many services as we can. I hope you see that the trend is moving towards people leaving thesse companies and their terrible practices. You can leave them too.
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Survival Skills

Dr. Maya Angelou, the poet, professor, and activist said, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." I don't think she was advocating for harsh, unforgiving judgment as much as she was advocating for the opposite of blind faith. The opposite of blind faith is the observant form. Making judgments is a vital survival skill. It is not a character flaw to evaluate the character of others. We are unable to surround ourselves with good and kind people unless we first determine whether they meet that criteria.
In the world of 2025, adults have had almost a decade to show what their beliefs are in the most treacherous political atmosphere in the US since the Civil War. The people who continue to support a man whose actions and words repeatedly demonstrate his contempt for important values, have shown us that they too have contempt for those values. The time for dialog and trying to understand them has long been over.
While it is indeed a gray world because not everything is black and white, there are some key performance indicators to demonstrate where people stand on racism, sexism and class differences. The biggest of those is the obvious one. I was pleased beyond measure to spend time with two of the most significant people from my formative years yesterday, Both of them are Republicans but neither of them voted for Trump. That kind of country over party regard for right and wrong is what we need and what we have so little of.
When People Show You Who They Are Maya Angelou - Poetry & Poets
When Someone Shows You Who They Are Believe Them
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Pieoneer- Multi-Use Pie Menu
Pieoneer, by
developer Martin Lexow, is a pie menu app with three primary use cases.
App Switcher
Using any hotkeys you like, you can summon a round (pie) menu with the icons of all your running icon s. If there are any you don't want appearing in your app switcher, you can exclude them. I use an alternative finder (Qspace), so the regular Finder is excluded from my pie menu. The menu appears immediately after being summoned and can be navigated via arrow keys or clicked with the mouse. If you have a multi-button programmable mouse or if you use a utility like Better Touch Tool, you can set up mouse buttons or trackpad gestures to summon the Pieoneer app switcher.
Launcher
The launcher is activated similar to the app switcher — with a unique hot key combination, mouse button or trackpad gesture. The best use case for the launcher is to use it for your second tier of apps, ones that you use regularly, but don't necessarily leave running all the time. I added eight apps, but ten or twelve would also work.
Controller
The most intriguing use case for Pieoneer to me is the controller function. With it, you can add menu commands to the pie menu, for example, in your browser, you could add the command to open your internet history, to see your bookmarks, to open a location — which puts the cursor in the address bar so it can also be a search shortcut with your default search engine. If you take the time to set it up with your most used apps, you won't have to try to remember so many commands to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts.
You get Pieoneer in the Mac App Store for $9.99. Other apps by the same developer include Polycapture, Keystroke Pro and Cursor Pro.
Wilmington Crosswalk
One of the reasons I love street photography so much is the way it captures these vanishing moments and the looks on people’s faces that leave you wondering what they were thinking about.
Morning in the Sandhills
Good march morning, y’all. The area I live in is known as the Carolina Sandhills. The undeveloped parts look like this, white sand and pine trees for miles.
This Week's Bookmarks - Self-Segregation, HP Sux, Amber Alerts, Recipes, IMDB, Avoiding Fees, Better Searches

Are We Self-Segregating on Social Media? - Dame Magazine - Many of the journalists criticizing social media platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon for being Liberal echo chambers are actually just upset because they worked hard to build a following on Twitter and now that it's a toxic hellstew, they are loathe to admit that their effort has gone to waste
Pluralistic: We bullied HP into a minor act of disenshittification - The Internet erupted in anger when it was revealed that HP was forcing consumers to be remain on telephone hold for a minimum of 15 minutes listening to recordings urging them to use web self service even if operators were available to speak to them
How to Turn Off AMBER Alerts on Apple Watch & iPhone - It's not that missing kids don't deserve help, it's just that your phone noisily going off in the middle of a funeral or a business meeting shouldn't be unavoidable
Off The Menu : Recipes and Cooking Food Network | Food Network - Use these recipes to make restaurant-style favorites at home.
He created one of the world’s first websites. It was IMDb. - Still, no one really knows who Needham is in these parts. The only sign that he founded one of the 50 most visited websites in the world — and one of the first 100 to 200 websites ever created — is the black car that takes him and his wife Karen, a former schoolteacher, around to movie theaters.
10 of the Most Ridiculous Fees (and How to Avoid Paying Them) | Lifehacker - Why am I being charged in the first place? What can I do to circumvent these fees and save my hard-earned money? Here are some of the most common fees that have been infuriating me lately, and what you can do to avoid paying them.
How 16 Companies are Dominating the World's Google Search Results (2024 Edition) - Detailed.com - They aren't dominating because they have the best content, they are dominating because they are designed to do well in Google Searches. They clog up your attempts to find good content. Learn how you can block them.
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Texas Lake (in North Carolina)
This place is always photogenic. It’s the improbably names Texas Lake, located on Ft. Bragg, NC.
Better Than Gold

I moved around as a kid, attending 13 schools, even though I went to the same high school for three years. As a result of all those moves, I was never able to keep up with any childhood friends from my younger years. There is one guy though, that's been a constant going all the way back to the 70's when we attended the same junior high. He and I went to the same Presbyterian church, so when I ran into him in the cafeteria in my first week at the new school, he was the only person I had any connection with.
He came from one of those families where everyone is above average. The youngest of five, his older brothers were a division one college football player at Duke, an ROTC scholar at Wake Forest and a West Pointer. His sister and Mom were teachers and his Dad was a retired Army officer and a successful businessman.
My buddy's name is James. We really bonded when he came to work at my family's farm. We spent long, long hours picking vegetables by the bushel, pulling acres of weeds once August came around, we mixed football practice in with the farm work. We also caught a break over that summer when we got to take driver's ed together. James was a natural athlete. I was more of a church softball guy but be never made me feel any less for it.
We went through high school together, sharing some classes. We also drank some beer, listened to many records and hung out. I was making alcohol influenced bad decisions even in those days, and he helped me recover from a couple of those. By the end of our senior year, I was estranged from my family and became a long-term house guest of his. His mother treated me with great tenderness. That she really and truly cared was very evident. She just had a gift for nurturing and a soft spot for me personally. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Wonder Woman and I went to the party, and she greeted me as warmly as ever, although I hadn't seen her in years.
After high school, James went to one of our state's flagship schools on a ROTC scholarship. He met and married a beautiful flight attendant at the chapel at Ft. Bragg. When the Gulf War happened, he was one of the guys sitting in the desert for months wondering if Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons. Not too long after the war was over, he got out of the Army and used his business degree to land a few management jobs, eventually making his way back to North Carolina. Although he was raised in the church, it was more of a cultural thing than a serious conviction until he was introduced to the doctrines of the Seventh Day Adventists, a church he joined and became dedicated to.
He felt the call that some feel to become a minister, enrolling in the Adventist Seminary in Michigan. He also decided that the Army was where he was going to do his ministry as a chaplain. He's still in the Army today at the age of 60, a full bird colonel with a couple more years to go before he retires. James has lived all over the states and in Europe. He also spent several years deployed to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, ministering to soldiers who were fighting and dying in some of the worst parts of those wars.
He and his wife had a daughter and two sons. I knew his oldest two kids briefly before he went to seminary, but I've watched all three of them grow up through pictures. James and I always stayed in touch. I've always had his phone number and his email address. His mom's recent birthday party was the first time I'd laid eyes on him in quite a while. It was the first time he's met Wonder Woman. His job will bring him back to Ft. Bragg, near where I live, regularly for a while and we have plans to meet for breakfast at my beloved local diner when it does.
For over four decades, he's been there for me whenever I needed him. He talked me through the lowest spots in my recovery from addiction. He hasn't judged me for some of my questionable life choices. He's been a gentleman to everyone I've been married to, a number a little higher than the average guy. Hopefully, you have a friend like him. You're fortunate if you do. I know I am.
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Password Paradise

The security measures we have to take in the modern era are generally a gigantic pain in the ass. At some point we had to stop using the same password everywhere. Then we had to add in uppercase letters, then numbers, then special symbols. Our passwords had to be longer than before. Every smart person who thought that 12E456 was a good password got schooled. After all the password drama, we had to start using two forms of authentication: getting a text, getting an email or using a special app like Microsoft Authenticator. It gets even more confusing wjhen computers start to want your fingerprint or to scan your face like the iPhone does.
We have a good idea of what the most common passwords are because of files recovered from giant security leaks, and there have been many, many of those.Common passwords are so well know that they have their own Wikipedia page. Every black hat hacker in the world has the database of common passwords ready to use to crack accounts whenever they have a chance.
Top 10 Most Used Passwords
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 123456789
- 12345
- 1234
- 111111
- 1234567
- dragon
Making a Good Password
You have no idea how many times over the years that I have seen people panic when I've asked them to change their password when working with them on support issues. Some people, when put on the spot, simply can not come up with one, and if they do, the chances of them immediately forgetting it are a sure bet. Here are some tips on creating strong passwords.
- Make it long - longer is stronger, at least 16 characters
- Make it random. The best option is to create a memorable phrase of 4 – 7 unrelated words. This is called a “passphrase.” For example: purplecoffeebusboy
- Make it unique. You need a different password for every single site. If you reuse the same one, it will be used against you the first time there is a breach at one of the sites where you have an account.
Have You Been Pwned?
Go to this website right now to see how many times your email address has been found in a security breach. My Gmail account is 20 years old. It's been compromised many, many times.
- Adobe
- Tumblr
- MySpace
- Dropbox
- last.fm
- Bitly
- Edmodo
- Diet.com
- My Fitness Pal
- Cafe Press
- Advanced Auto Parts
Password Manager
Lastly, you need to get a program known as a password manager and I';m not talking about the one in your browser. If you aren;t tech savvy, get someone who is to help you set this up. You've heard this before, but it is now time to act. Here are a few suggestions of programs you can use on your computer and your phone.
#1 Password Manager & Vault App with Single-Sign On & MFA Solutions - LastPass
Password Manager & Extended Access Management | 1Password | 1Password
Best Password Manager for Business, Enterprise & Personal | Bitwarden
Use the Passwords app to create, manage, and share passwords and passkeys across Apple devices - Apple Support
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Stickier - Free Notes App with Power User Features
Stickier is a free
sticky notes app that ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to useful
features.
- iCloud sync for use on multiple devices
- Quick notes feature with custom hotkey for quick text entry
- Custom note color, text color and background image if desired. You can set a default for all notes and change individual notes to make them stand out
- Custom text, text size and margins
- Import and export notes
- Clickable links
- Checklists
- Menu bar and/or dock access
Stickier keeps a history of changes to each note, allowing you to revert to an earlier version or recover data if you need to. You can share the text of any note via the Mac share sheet. When it comes to pinning notes, you can leave a note open at its regular size, or you can collapse it so that it shows only the first line of text. You can choose the size and location of each note, moving it anywhere you'd like on your display.
Custom formatting includes bulleted lists as well as bold, italic and strike-through text. You can use the return key to create a paragraph break in a note, or a button in the interface to create a new line without the paragraph break.
You can get the app from the Mac App Store for free. The iOS app is $4.99.
Thanks to @dhry@mastodon.social for the tip on this app.
What Were Your First Seven Jobs?

As a kid growing up in a house where there wasn't much disposable cash, I learned early on that I had to figure out a way to hustle up some dough if I wanted spending money. In the 70s you could collect glass bottles and turn them in at the grocery store for cash. The going rate was a nickel apiece. My step-father was the editor of the local paper, The Harnett County News, and he let me sell newspapers on the street on the day the weekly edition was published. A couple of years later, aluminum cans replaced steel ones and a new opportunity for scavenging was born. I did that for a while, and then I finally had a job where I had pay taxes. I was 12.
Job # 1 - Newspaper Delivery
By the time I was in sixth grade, I was deemed old enough to have my own paper route. We'd moved to a new town, one where the newspaper, The New Bern Sun Journal, was printed six days a week. I split the six-mile route with my younger brother, who took the densely packed first mile. I pedaled the remaining miles on my bike, equipped with a front basket and two rear baskets, plus a bag slung around my shoulders. We hadn't had the route too long when my brother was struck by a careless driver and injured pretty severely. I took over his portion. On Saturdays, I had to go knock on doors to collect payment from my customers. Nothing was automated. I'm still mad at the people who tried to stiff a sixth grader for free newspaper delivery.
Job # 2 Farm Hand
By far the most difficult job I ever had was working on my uncle's farm from the time I was 14 until I was 18. I went to live with him after being asked not to come back to the junior high I attended in Jacksonville, NC just because I happened to have a little tiny bit of weed in my pocket one day. I may have tried to smoke it on the playground too. Anyway, my uncle had a small farm of just 60 acres. We cultivated the entire property with vegetables, known as truck farming in our area. The two of us, along with a tenant who lived on the farm and several high school students we hired, were responsible for all the labor. We sold all the produce directly to the public on the farm; none of it was taken to any market. Some were row crops we allowed our customers to pick at a discounted price, but the majority of the harvest was gathered by a farm employee. Picture 1,000 tomato plants raised waist-high, acres of butter beans, snap beans, field peas, English peas, Irish potatoes, pumpkins, squash, okra, cucumbers, peppers, watermelons, collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, and my least favorite crop of all: sweet corn, also known as roasting ears in the rural community. More farm tales
Job # 3 Landscaping
During holiday breaks from school , like Christmas and Easter, I would take advantage of the opportunity to earn extra money by working for a landscape company at commercial sites like banks, liquor stores and a large Monsanto factory on the outside of town. In the days before there was a large Latino presence, high school kids actually did work like this.
Job # 4 Bus Boy
My senior year in high school was tumultuous. By Thanksgiving, my girlfriend was pregnant. By the end of January, I left the farm after a big fight with my uncle. I lived briefly with my Dad who had just moved back to the state before finishing out high school, basically couch-surfing. My high school football coach called in a favor with a college buddy and helped me land a job working at Shoney's busing tables for minimum wage, money I was glad to have. I went there straight from school and usually worked until around 11PM. It was not a fun year.
Job # 5 Soldier
I started my time in the military by joining the National Guard when I was still in high school. For the last few months of my senior year, I spent one weekend out of four at the armory or in the field with the unit I would join after completing my training. They let me come in my civilian clothes and observe because they knew I needed the money, a little less than a hundred dollars was what I received each month. Eleven days after I graduated, I left my girlfriend, then seven months pregnant, for basic training. Our son was born about two weeks before I graduated.
Job # 6 Carpet Cleaner
After returning from training and immediately getting married, I moved a couple of counties away from where I'd gone to high school to take a job at a business owned by my aunt and uncle. It was one of the major mistakes of my life. The promise of a living wage they'd made me turned out to be 75 cents above minimum wage. I had no car, knew no one in town, had a wife and a baby and was doing a job that I had no experience in, cleaning carpets in the mansions of millionaires in the wealthy golf community of Pinehurst. It didn't last long. Thankfully, the head enlisted man of my National Guard unit offered me a way out of it one weekend as a bribe to keep me from murdering the sergeant in charge of my mortar crew. That's another story.
Job # 7 Carpenter
The last job I held before entering active duty was doing commercial construction for the civilian company my first sergeant ran as his civilian occupation. He helped me get the tools I needed and assigned me to work with experienced carpenters to learn how to do everything from preparing foundations, framing the floors walls and roof to hanging doors and installing baseboards and molding. I learned how to read blueprints and building plans and though briefly about making a permanent living doing that work, but the pay and benefits could not compete with what I could earn in the regular Army. I thanked the boss and enlisted in the regular Army. I was 19.
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Better Internet Searches

I am in the midst of a project I'll probably never finish. I'm doing what I can to protect myself from the rapacious appetite of the big tech companies, who are finding more and more ways to ruin the experience of what many refer to as "life". Don't think for a minute that these companies won't sell you out to whoever wants to buy information about your life that you thought were private. Insurance companies are already increasing rates, denying claims and canceling policies based on information they purchase from data brokers.
Using Kagi
The best solution is to use Kagi as your search engine. It has zero ads. It's so secure that what you search for can be totally separated from your identity. You can customize your results easily. If, like any sane and rational person, you don't want to see any stories from Fox News in your search results, you can block the site from ever appearing. If you realize just how many answers to life's questions can be found on Reddit, you can tell Kagi to prioritize the site.
You can make your own custom search environment. Kagi calls that a Lens. Kagi Lenses allow you to customize your searches by specifying which websites (and other parameters) you see in your results. We provide a few Lenses to get you started, such as one to search only online discussions and forums.
Have more questions about Kagi? Get all the answers here.
Improving Google
Google used to be miraculous. Before it came on the scene, there were sites like AltaVista and AskJeeves and none of them could give you information they way Google could. But, when Google became the monopoly it is is today, the suits there decided to make its search results worse so that people would spend more time looking for what they are after, thus giving Google an opportunity to expose them to more advertising.
Read about it here - The Man Who Killed Google Search
Like every big tech company these days, Google is injecting AI into every search you do to prove to shareholders that they are on the cutting edge. Well, the shareholders don't know jack about what people want. We don't want AI crap. You can search Google using an easy to implement work wround to avoid having AI injected into your results.
Here's how - Don't Want AI Overviews? How to Get 10 Plain Google Search Results - CNET
Did you know that only 16 companies own the 500 websites that show up most often in search results? They don't show up because they have the best content. They show up because they have the best search engine optimization (SEO.) Their articles are written to do well in Google searches, not to provide you with information. Well, you can block all of them with one browser extension and one web page where you can subscribe to a list (for free) to keep that SEO garbage from ruining your life.
Ublacklist blocks sites you specify from appaearing in your Google search results
bbbhltz/16CompaniesFilters: uBlacklist lists for the 16 Companies that dominate search results - Codeberg.org
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Opting for Mac Apps That Are Immune to Changes in US Privacy Laws
Many people have become concerned that changes in the US politics,
the FCC and attitudes in the big American tech companies may result in
less reliable privacy protections in the software they use. One solution
is to move to using apps and services provided by European and Canadian
companies. Australian writer Joan Westernberg did a deep
dive on her tech stack recently, and here are a few apps she
recommended, some of which I have featured previously on AppAddict.
ToDoist - Europe
ToDoist is a privacy first task and calendar app available for macOS and iOS available https://apps.apple.com/us/app/todoist-to-do-list-calendar/id585829637?mt=12. Todoist is a simple yet powerful planner tool that organizes both your life and work. It can also be used a habit tracker. Subscription based.
iAWriter - Switzerland
iAwriter a markdown/plain text editor designed especially for writing and document creation. It isn't a text editor in the fashion of VS Code or BBEdit. If you aren't a markdown wiz, all the commands are accessible from the menu bar. The simplified interface is its hallmark, but it has various powerful tools behind the curtains. Your documents are local by default, with options to use end-to-end encrypted storage solutions. More information
Proton - Switzerland
The Proton Foundation offers a list of encrypted services including email, cloud storage, a password manager, a calendar, and a VPN. None of its products are subject to US surveillance laws. It markets itself on its privacy features and isn't likely to follow the VC funded pattern of using your data to maximize profit.
Joplin - France
Joplin is an open-source notes app that offers a local only option or syncing on servers based in France. You can also opt for syncing on your choice of end-to-end encrypted services. It offers importing from various formats including Evernote, Markdown and plain text. It has a powerful web clipper and a plugin architecture, making it an extensible choice with support for multiple platforms.
Vivaldi - Norway and Iceland
Vivaldi is my browser choice for its built-in privacy and tracking protections and its extreme customization options. It has powerful security, power consumptions, appearance and tab management features as well as a built-in calendar, email and feed reader. There is a companion app for iOS.
LibreOffice - Germany
LibreOffice is a full-featured open-source office suite used by millions. It features a word processor, spreadsheets, presentations in an open format but can also open and save in Microsoft Office formats. Microsoft products are infamous for being telemetry filled and AI influenced. This is a solid privacy protecting alternative.
Cozy Cloud - France
Cozy Cloud is a personal cloud to gather all your data like bills, notes, and passwords. It's GDPR, privacy-focused, open source, and hosted in France. It has a limited free plan for you to investigate.
The People Who Fear Email

To the best of my recollection, I got my first corporate email address in 1996. At the time, I worked for a subsidiary of the Westinghouse Electrical Corporation as a technical writer. I started there as a temp on second shift shortly after I left my job working for the state department of correction. After seven years of being a prison guard, I found myself in a noisy factory on my feet for a nightly eight-hour shift. Eventually, I was hired as a regular employee on days when my enthusiasm for all things technical drew the attention of a quality engineer, who got me what was supposed to be a two-week gig in the white-collar world to write some work instructions for the assembly line. I managed to leverage that into a full-time position and never went back to work on the factory floor.
The company gave me a powerful second generation Pentium computer, an expensive Kodak digital camera, a copy of Corel Draw and Corel Photo Paint and a color laser printer that cost more than the car I drove to work. They also gave me an email address. I developed a habit. When people asked me to do things via email, I'd respond to them and let them know whether I could accomplish what they wanted. It didn't matter to me if the email came from the manager of the facility or from a foreman in the machine shop. Email was no different to me than a phone call or a conversation. It was just a way to communicate about the job.
Little did I know that a particular type of person would evolve in the workplace. I found as years passed that it would become impossible to get some people to commit to doing anything in an email. You couldn't get them to answer questions, put forth ideas, or even acknowledge that you'd conveyed information to them. These people were all too often bosses. Someone put them in positions of authority to make choices and, by god, to be leaders. Unfortunately, they were so concerned with never being accountable for a damn thing, they'd rather have a conversation face to face in the middle of a hurricane than actually make a commitment in writing which you could later use to remind them of a promise they'd made.
And , you know what would happen if one of their verbally conveyed decisions or promises went sour? You know. You know that they would then lie and gaslight and deny ever having said such a thing. Furthermore, you obviously misunderstood them, or, maybe you are just making things up because you are a troublemaker. Yeah, that's it. You are not a team player. It's not like you have anything in writing, now do you?
I certainly hope that my scathing dislike for this kind of bullshit is coming across clearly. I wrote emails that conveyed, to the best of my ability to use the English language, exactly what i meant to say. I would make a commitment to you, in writing, to actually do my job, the one the taxpayers or the university paid me to do. My goal was to help my customers, fulfill my duties and earn my paycheck. I had no reason to make every decision based on covering my ass and self-preservation because people who feel like they have to live like that are a cancer in the workplace and I don't like them. At all. Not one bit.
Please be the kind of person who doesn't play silly games. Answer questions. If you are supposed to support someone, then support them. Don't be afraid to make commitments and, by all means, be honest. Everyone hates a liar.
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DeGoogling My Photos and Setting Up Local Management

My recent goal has been to get a copy of all my photos onto a local drive and use an app that respects the file system and doesn't hide the files in a mysterious, impenetrable database like Apple Photos does. I am also trying to get Google out of my business, a slow and difficult process.
For years, I've backed up my iPhone photos to three different platforms: iCloud because it's built into iOS and easy, Google Photos, because it's easy to do it automatically using the iOS app and to Amazon because photo storage is included in Prime and my wife and I can use our joint account so all the family photos end up here, including the ones we take with our "real" cameras.
Each platform has disadvantages. None of them mirror your file system. iCloud requires you to use the Apple Photos app. Google and Amazon both require you to use a web browser. I experimented with ways of downloading my photo archives from Apple and was not satisfied with the result. The only alternative is to set up the Photos app to download full-sized images and hope that actually happens.
Downloading content from Amazon involves using the Mac app and choosing folders and albums, a process that is cumbersome and has too much friction to be a practical solution. The simplest way for me to get all of my photos, as files, downloaded to my hard drive in a way that I could name them and organize them as I see fit was through Google Takeout An hour after placing a request to download my photos in 10GB ZIP files, I had an email with the links to 15 archives - the totality of my still photos and videos.
Here's my workflow to turn that massive collection of files into a usable archive.
- Download the ZIP files using a browser on to an external had drive.
- Copy one archive at the time to a folder in my Mac home directory. I called mine local,
- Use Better Zip to unarchive the just the subfolder containing the images and video. Better Zip is great because you don't have to unzip the whole archive to get just the files you want, plus, when you install it, you gain the ability to use Quicklook to inspect the contents of archives without opening them.
- Use A Better Finder Attributes to change the creation date of the photos to match the creation date contained in the EXIF information.
- Use Hazel to sort the photos into folders based on the year and month they were taken. Hazel can also name the photos using the same type of convention. My DSLR photos are names my Lightoom, but my iPhone photos have the default names given to them by iOS.You may find it easier to create the Hazel rule if you use Finder's Smart Folders feature to consolidate all the images into a temporary folder before sorting them.
- After the photos are sorted, you can trash the local copy of the ZIP file and empty your trash.
- Use a photo management program that respects the files system to inspect, edit and view your photos. Some decent choices are XnViewMP (free), Adobe Bridge (free), FlowVision (free), Musebox (12.99), Pixea ($9.99)
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Virginia Lasts Forever
Hiking across a river (The James?) somewhere in Virginia. It took about five weeks to get from the WV line to the border with TN.
Announcing the AppAddict Newsletter
If you like finding out about interesting and useful software, I'm
making it easier for you to get detailed updates about what is
available.
I started posting reviews of Mac and iOS apps in April 2024. To date, I've reviewed over 300 apps, posted several roundups of free Mac software and offered advice on Mac automation. So far, I've been able to respond to every message from readers with personalized advice when asked.
I decided to start a Kofi page is to enable me to provide reviews to people who would like to receive them in newsletter form. I've had several requests and this appears to be an easy to manage method of getting the news about the latest apps to anyone who wants it in their inbox
Each of my reviews contains a link to where you can download the software, as well as its cost - if there is one. I am not affiliated with any developer or commercial publisher. I've been downloading, testing and using Mac software since the days of the classic OS. Most of my reviews are recommendations, but I occasionally post a "stay away" warning if I find something egregious that I think folks should avoid.
If you are a developer and would like me to review your app, contact me through the blog. I don't review every app I'm presented with, but if you've made something unique and helpful, I'll be glad to take a look and give you some feedback.
Hyperspace Frees Up Disk Space Without Deleting Files
Developer, writer and podcaster, John Siracusa, has a new app you
should try out if disk space on your Mac is starting to become scarce.
I'm not convinced that anyone, anywhere, including Cupertino, truly understands the relationship between the disk space you actually have on your Mac and what the system reports. Cloud storage totals show what's in the cloud, not on your hard drive. Then there is the whole purgeable space concept. Another factor that contributes to the mystery and one that I just learned about is what happens on AFPS formatted drives when you duplicate a file. I'll let the legendary Mac developer, John Siracusa, explain:
Today, most Mac users don’t even notice that using the “Duplicate” command in the Finder to make a copy of a file doesn’t actually copy the file’s contents. Instead, it makes a “clone” file that shares its data with the original file. That’s why duplicating a file in the Finder is nearly instant, no matter how large the file is. Despite knowing about clone files since the APFS introduction nearly eight years ago, I didn’t give them much thought beyond the tiny thrill of knowing that I wasn’t eating any more disk space when I duplicated a large file in the Finder. But late last year, as my Mac’s disk slowly filled, I started to muse about how I might be able to get some disk space back. If I could find files that had the same content but were not clones of each other, I could convert them into clones that all shared a single instance of the data on disk. I took an afternoon to whip up a ...scrip... to see how much space I might be able to save by doing this. It turned out to be a lot: dozens of gigabytes.
There are plenty of Mac apps that will save disk space by finding duplicate files and then deleting the duplicates. Using APFS clones, this app can reclaim disk space without removing any files.
If you have technical questions, there is extensive documentation on Siracusa's blog - Hyperspace
Siracusa went on to convert the script he wrote into a native Mac app, written in Swift. You can get it from the App Store for free and run it against your Mac's file system to see how much disk space you can reclaim. If it's a significant amount, you have several subscription and purchase options:
- $9.99 a month
- $19.99 a year
- $49.99 lifetime
The Levitating Jay
I love the way he seems to be levitating. This blue jay and I formed quite a relationship on my deck over the winter, reinforced by his love for peanuts. #birds
Mortality

My fortieth high school reunion was a couple of years ago. The organizers set up a table covered with pictures of our classmates who've died since we graduated in June 1983. It started happening almost immediately. A friend of mine named Hope Pleasant was killed in a car crash within a year or two. The trainer for our football team, Stuart Arrowwood, died along 250 other soldiers in a plan crash at Gander, Newfoundland around the same time. More car crashes, cancer, and other mortal illnesses took their toll. A couple of our memorable athletes are already gone. We were the very first class of Generation X to graduate. This year we are turning 60.
Most people in my family make it into their 80s despite a predisposition towards high-blood pressure and other 21st century curses. Both of my parents are still alive, and my Mom is remarkably active, having walked across Scotland and Spain well into her 70s. I try not to think about my mortality too much. I could be healthier. Wonder Woman will probably outlive me for years. Her family's longevity is remarkable and she is extraordinarily fit. Doctor's always react with surprise at her low heart rate until she patiently explains her mutant status to them. She was tested in the sports lab at our local university. She had the fitness level of a college athlete, even though she was well past 50. She may have won the genetic lottery, but she works hard and eats right.
I'm not one who worries too much about leaving a legacy. I don't care what happens to my stuff. Mostly it's just books and computers. I have my digital memories, passwords and important accounts set up so that Wonder Woman can access them. She's tech savvy and can figure out how to save the photos and documents easily enough. Unless I happen to kick the bucket on the day all my domains expire, anyone else who wants to save anything should have an opportunity before I disappear from the Internet.
I intend to leave my body to science. The parts will be too worn out for anyone to be a second-hand Lou Plummer, but maybe some medial student can get some use out of whatever is left of me. I am not concerned with whatever kind of after party my kids and grandkids want to have. I'll be gone, and I'm not wasting any time picking out hymns or venues or silly stuff like that. They can play bluegrass music and eat my favorite foods for dinner, if that makes them miss me any less.
I am concerned with living out the rest of my life trying to be useful, trying to keep growing and sharing whatever I can to help out the people that will carry on the fight when I am gone. The challenge is to make the most of every day that I can. That's why I stay in contact with the people who matter to me and why I tell them that I love them frequently. If you ever take any advice from me, let it be that.
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The Coffee Shop as Office

I drove the same two-lane country road to my office for twenty years. Most of the time, I'd roll up to the front door totally unable to recall a single thing I'd seen on my drive. It wasn't an unpleasant commute unless I was running behind and trapped behind a school bus. It's very difficult to form new memories when you are continually in the same surroundings. That's why travel has such an appeal top so many people. We are able to recall and savor the new things we see and experience when we travel in a way we just can't do staring at the same four walls or the same commute.
Because of this, I've resolved to take the opportunity to work from local coffee shops a few days each month. The ones I have in mind have Wi-Fi, aren't too busy and are open to people like me nursing a cup of java while we GSD.
The benefits of working this way include:
- Breaking bad habits
- Increased productivity
- Meeting people
Benefits of Working from a Coffee Shop
Why People Love Working From Coffee Shops and 10 Tips to Do It Effectively
The Benefits of Working in a Café | Limepack
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Captin Solves a Major Mac Annoyance
Unless you are an accomplished touch typist, which I am not, you
probably spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard when working at
your computer. Occasionally, those of us who type in this manner
inadvertently hit the Caps Lock key unknowingly. When we finally check
the display, we see a long string of text IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Fixing
this is a PIA.
Enter Captin, a free little utility that lets you know in every way possible when you have turned on Caps Lock, and not just visually. You can set a sound warning too.
Notification Methods
- HUD - Instant visual feedback
- Menu-Bar Icon - Customizable LED color
- Dock Icon - Theme-aware Dock-icon style
- Customization - Color, duration, size, and sound
- Multiple Displays - Adjust position for each display
The Benefactor
This man visits with the homeless who frequent the old downtown area. He sometimes gives them a little cash along with a stern talking to. He’s been doing it for years.
Little Projects

My wife is exceptionally handy and seldom asks me to do much. We aren't big gardeners. Our yard is well established, and it's easy to maintain. We pay to have big home improvements done, and the smaller projects we either do together or she just knocks them out. I will never forget when we first got together. We lived in a house with a pool. One day the pump just died, She went online, found the right pump, ordered it overnight. The next day she came home from her CPA firm, took off her business suit, unboxed the pool pump and installed it herself. In an hour, it was done. I was amazed then and I am amazed now.
Since I am newly retired, I am working on making myself a routine and coming up with a few projects. Things I want to do daily include:
- Going for a walk
- A half-hour to an hour of housework
- Cooking dinner
Writing can now take up a sizable chunk of my day. I have a list of software to download and test before reviewing it for AppAddict. I plan to spend more time coming up with ideas to create link bundles about for Linkage. As far as this blog goes, my goal is just get better. I don't know what that looks like, exactly. I can take my time now, polish things a bit, quit using the word "awesome" so much, get better at commas - that kind of stuff.
I have several tech projects underway. I used the process Jason Snell wrote about to download my entire Kindle collection instead of just select books like I did previously. It took just a few minutes to get all 555 of them from Amazon's servers to my hard drive. Now I have to set up Calibre and import them to remove the DRM and get them ready for use wherever I want them.
Now that Amazon is keeping people from actually owning the things they've purchased, i found a way to get all my Audible books converted. Using the free and open-source tool, Libation, I am downloading another 500-plus books, but this process is much lengthier. Thankfully, the new Mac workstation I just set up can work on this job around the clock.
I also want to get a local copy of all my photos for various reasons, mostly to use local search tools and for quicker access to them. I requested a Google takeout today and within hours I had 15 zip files of 10 GB each ready to download. I recently exported all my iCloud photos to Google, so hopefully the files I'm downloading will have all of them complete with metadata. I will let you know.
I'm also going to pull my music collection out of the cloud so that I can set up a music server that not dependent on my Internet connection. I have about 30K songs from the olden days when we were still buying our own music, including some difficult to find bootlegs from Dylan, as well as many do it yourself albums from bars and coffee shops that aren't to be found on Apple Music or Spotify.
To hold all this data, I've rounded up a pile of various hard drives I've accumulated through the years and looked at possible reusing the housing from some small external drives with upgrades. I found a supremely useful website for locating the lowest priced drives on Amazon, and I'll be keeping my eyes on that for bargains while I assemble this homemade NAS of mine.
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Books, Books, Books

Looking for book recommendations is a favorite pastime. My areas of interest are wide and varied, probably a little more guy-heavy than they should be, although I did unashamedly find myself a fan of a genre I only later learned was called "Paranormal Romance." I even read a couple of the Twilight books a few years ago. Just to give you a taste of what my main jams are, here are a few lists I've collected or put together through the years.
My Favorite Books About the Appalachian Trail | Linkage
Best Baseball Books | Goodreads
23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books
Readers Weighed in on the Best Books About the Vietnam War - The New York Times
7 Books Every Nordic Thriller Fan Should Read
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Libation - Audiobook Downloader and Converter
Amazon
recently announced its intention to prevent customers from being
able to download copies of their purchased audiobooks, a feature it had
supported since the inception of the Kindle. Amazon is also the company
behind Audible, the popular vendor of audiobooks. Although they have not
said they will be revoking download access to this service, it is a
possibility and audiobook owners looking for a way to back up what they
have purchased are looking for a solution to make this content useful
outside the Amazon walled garden.
The solution I am using is Libation, a FOSS title available on GitHub. Libation is a bare-bones application without a fancy UI, but it is fully functional and takes only a few minutes to set up and use. After it converted my audiobooks into M4B files, a standard audiobook format which allows bookmarks, I was able to play my books using VLC and various iOS apps like the free Audiobooks MP3 and M4B Player.
One warning - the file sizes are large. If you have a sizable collection, I would advise against downloading to your internal hard drive unless you have a lot of free space. Saving to an external drive would be a better option.
Features
- Import library from Audible, including cover art
- Download and convert all books to other audio formats (M4b and MP3)
- Download accompanying PDFs
- Add tags to books for better organization
- Powerful advanced search built on the Lucene search engine
- Customizable saved filters for common searches
- Open source
- Supports most regions: US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, India, and Spain
- Fully supported in Windows, Mac, and Linux
Observations on Booze

I don't think I could have made myself drink this even on my darkest days.
I had next to no drama involving alcohol while I was growing up. My Dad sometimes drank beer in the evenings while watching TV, but I only lived with him for a couple of years in elementary school, so there were limited opportunities for me to witness anything ugly. For a long time, he lived in Alabama, where he was an instructor pilot at the Army'd helicopter flight school at Ft. Rucker. My siblings and I all lived in North Carolina, along with most of the rest of our extended family. I'd never seen a single drop of anything alcoholic in my grandparent's house. My grandfather, who reportedly used to like a cold beer once in a while, forswore it when he turned his life over to the Lord, a decision he did not take lightly. I couldn't conceive of my grandmother taking a drink. As an adult, I found out that she would accept a glass of wine at dinner when visiting my Mother, I was absolutely scandalized.
Anyway, when Dad would come to visit, he would keep a cooler of beer in his car and make periodic trips to it during the evening to pour cold Budweiser into a red solo cup, which he would then take into the house. I lived with my Dad's brother at the time and I can assure you that he did not approve of this behavior. My uncle liked beer himself, but he didn't believe in taking it into the house. He was a farmer. He would drink beer out at the barn or sitting in his truck listening to country music, but that was as close to the house as it got. Not only that, but he is nearly 80 now and still has a refrigerator and a recycling barrel at the barn.
I went with my first wife to her family's Thanksgiving dinner the year we got married. When I saw them sitting bottles of wine on the counter, I didn't know what to think. I had no experience with people doing such a thing. My family drank iced tea with Thanksgiving dinner. Even today (different wife) when we go to Sunday dinner at my in-laws, and they break out the wine and liqueur to sweeten the coffee with, I am still faintly surprised that people, nice people too, do things like that.
As a recovering alcoholic in long-term sobriety, I try not to make any kind of value judgments on anyone else's drinking. I totally get the fact that my family followed a Souther Protestant tradition where drinking is frowned upon, and holy communion is always taken with Welches grape juice. My in-laws are Catholic, with a sprinkling of military life and strong Italian heritage thrown in. Their take on booze is that it isn't a sin and responsible adults can do whatever they hell they want to do - as long as they go to mass. (Just kidding - kind of)
My own inability to drink moderately didn't come from a constant exposure to booze as a kid or the ready availability of it in any house I grew up in, and there were many in my tumultuous early life. I was just born without that feeling that tells non-alcoholics to stop. Scientists have identified the gene that indicates a genetic predisposition to addiction. People don't develop alcoholism because it's fun (it is not.) I'm fully on the side of the illness being from nature, not from nurture in my case at least.
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Telling Stories to Children

When a child says, “Tell me a story,” she is not asking for a narrative. She is asking for your attention - How to Tell Stories to Children
When my kids were in late elementary school and middle school, I started making up different stories about certain houses in our neighborhood. One house had a well-maintained yard, but there were seldom any cars there, The curtains were always drawn and there were no decorations or personal effects ever in evidence. I decided to tell the kiddos that all of those facts were clear evidence that this was a CIA safe house. I never backed down from that assertion. To this day if one of them mentions it, I support my original premise with whatever I can make up on the spot. Its been a running gag for thirty years.
Another house got labeled as The Church of Satan just because I didn't like the look of it. It sits on a double lot, which I find pretentious. It also has a secluded backyard and an extra tall privacy fence. Wonder Woman has never heard me refer to is as anything else.
My son loved camping trip ghost stories until I made one up based on the character of Blue Duck, a psychopathic Indian from a Larry McMurtry book. I found out recently that my story telling skills had traumatized him for years. Oops. Sorry, Buddy!
We always read to our kids. I think it's an invaluable way to spend time with them. I was glad to see the tradition carry on to another generation when my grandkids came along. It is a sacred part of their nightly routine. Maybe I was a little unconventional with my stories, but the kids all turned out OK, so no harm done.
How to Tell Awesome Stories to Your Kids | The Art of Manliness
Dads, what are your go-to strategiess for making up bedtime stories on the fly? : r/daddit
How Telling Stories Helps Kids Learn |… | PBS KIDS for Parents
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My Obsidian Plugin List
#Obsidian #ObsidianMD #PKM
I'm not one of those people who
tell others that the only or best way to use Obsidian is by eschewing
plugins and going with a vanilla version of the app. If that works best
for some people, that's fine, but in my experience, the real power and
enjoyment of the Obsidian experience comes from finding plugins to
extend the functionality of the app.
My primary uses
for Obsidian are:
- Where I do all my writing
- As a life record/journal
- Personal database
The plugins I use are the ones that help me with those tasks. I don't leave all of these turned on all the time. For example, I leave the importer plugin turned off unless I am going to use it immediately. Since I use Obsidian on multiple devices and sync with Obsidian Sync, I am able to use different plugins on each device, a feature you don't get with DIY syncing. I can also have different settings for plugins on different devices. I only use my primary computer with the plugins that sync with external services like RSS and Raindrop.io
You can generate your own list of plugins to share with Share my plugin list by Benature
My Plugins
-
⬇️ Actions URI by Carlo Zottmann ^[Adds additional x-callback-url endpoints to the app for common actions — it's a clean, super-charged addition to Obsidian URI.] - ⬇️ Advanced URI by Vinzent ♡ ^[Advanced modes for Obsidian URI]
- ⬇️ Attachment Management by trganda ♡ ^[Customize your attachment path of notes independently with variables and auto rename it on change.]
- ⬇️ Auto Note Mover by faru ^[Auto Note Mover will automatically move the active notes to their respective folders according to the rules.]
- ⬇️ Beautitab by Andrew McGivery ♡ ^[Creates a customizable new tab view with beautiful backgrounds, quotes, search, and more.]
- ⬇️ Better Search Views by ivan-lednev ♡ ^[Outliner-like breadcrumb trees for search, backlinks and embedded queries ]
- ⬇️ Better Word Count by Luke Leppan ^[Counts the words of selected text in the editor.]
- ⬇️ Buttons by shabegom ^[Create Buttons in your Obsidian notes to run commands, open links, and insert templates]
- ⬇️ Calendar by Liam Cain ^[Calendar view of your daily notes]
- ⬇️ Commander by jsmorabito & phibr0 ♡ ^[Customize your workspace by adding commands everywhere, create Macros and supercharge your mobile toolbar.]
- ⬇️ Dataview by Michael Brenan ^[Complex data views for the data-obsessed.]
- ⬇️ Editing Toolbar by Cuman ♡ ^[The Obsidian Editing Toolbar is modified from cmenu, which provides more powerful customization settings and has many built-in editing commands to be a MS Word-like toolbar editing experience.]
- ⬇️ Extract url content by Stephen Solka ^[Extract url converting content into markdown]
- ⬇️ File Explorer++ by kelszo ^[Hide and pin files and folders in the file explorer using custom filters, such as wildcards and regex, based on their names, paths, and tags. Additionally, achieve the same with a single click in the file menu.]
- ⬇️ File Manager ^[Adds missing features to the file explorer.]
- ⬇️ Folder Note by xpgo ^[Click a folder node to show a note describing the folder.]
- ⬇️ History Today by Yaob1990 ^[View and review your historical notes from this day across previous years]
- ⬇️ Iconize by Florian Woelki ^[Add icons to anything you desire in Obsidian, including files, folders, and text.]
- ⬇️ LanguageTool Integration by Clemens Ertle ^[Inofficial LanguageTool plugin]
- ⬇️ Linter by Victor Tao ^[Formats and styles your notes. It can be used to format YAML tags, aliases, arrays, and metadata; footnotes; headings; spacing; math blocks; regular markdown contents like list, italics, and bold styles; and more with the use of custom rule options as well.]
- ⬇️ Metadata Menu by mdelobelle ♡ ^[For data quality enthusiasts (and dataview users): manage the metadata of your notes.]
- ⬇️ Mononote by Carlo Zottmann ^[Ensures each note occupies only one tab. If a note is already open, its existing tab will be focussed instead of opening the same file in the current tab.]
- ⬇️ Multi Properties by technohiker ^[Adds Properties to multiple notes at once. Either right-click a folder, or select multiple notes and right-click the selection.]
- ⬇️ Omnisearch by Simon Cambier ♡/♡ ^[A search engine that just works]
- ⬇️ Periodic Notes by Liam Cain ^[Create/manage your daily, weekly, and monthly notes]
- ⬇️ Plugin Update Tracker ^[Know when installed plugins have updates and evaluate the risk of upgrading]
- ⬇️ QuickAdd by Christian B. B. Houmann ♡ ^[Quickly add new pages or content to your vault.]
- ⬇️ Raindrop Highlights by kaiiiz ^[Sync your Raindrop.io highlights.]
- ⬇️ Read Later by Gabriele Cannata ^[Synch web pages to markdown and integrate with read-it-later apps (Pocket, Instapaper)]
- ⬇️ Readability Score by zuchka ^[Score the readabilty of your writing using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formula.]
- ⬇️ ReadItLater by Dominik Pieper ^[Save online content to your Vault, utilize embedded template engine and organize your reading list to your needs. Preserve the web with ReadItLater.]
- ⬇️ Recent Files by Tony Grosinger ♡/♡/♡ ^[List files by most recently opened]
- ⬇️ Rss Copyist by aoout ^[Get the rss articles as mdfiles.]
- ⬇️ Safe Filename Linter by sneaky-foxes ^[Lints filenames for invalid or troublesome characters]
- ⬇️ Settings Search by Jeremy Valentine ^[Globally search settings in Obsidian.md]
- ⬇️ Shortcut Launcher by MacStories ^[Trigger shortcuts in Apple's Shortcuts app from Obsidian with custom commands.]
- ⬇️ Style Settings by mgmeyers ^[Offers controls for adjusting theme, plugin, and snippet CSS variables.]
- ⬇️ Tag Wrangler by PJ Eby ♡ ^[Rename, merge, toggle, and search tags from the tag pane]
- ⬇️ TagFolder by vorotamoroz ^[Show tags as folder]
- ⬇️ Text Generator by Noureddine Haouari ♡ ^[Text generation using AI]
- ⬇️ Things Logbook by Liam Cain ^[Sync your Things.app Logbook with daily notes]
- ⬇️ Things3 Today by wudanyang6 ^[Manage today's tasks with Things3]
- ⬇️ Waypoint by Idrees Hassan ^[Easily generate dynamic content maps in your folder notes using waypoints. Enables folders to show up in the graph view and removes the need for messy tags!]
- ⬇️ Update modified date by Alan Grainger ♡ ^[Automatically update a frontmatter modified date field when you modify your note. This will not use the filesystem time, but only when you modify the file through Obsidian. Optionally store a history of edit times.]
- ⬇️ Templater by SilentVoid ^[Create and use templates]
- ⬇️ Paste URL into selection ^[Paste URL "into" selected text.]
- ⬇️ Local Images Plus by catalysm, aleksey-rezvov, Sergei Korneev ♡ ^[Local Images Plus plugin searches for all external media links in your notes, downloads and saves them locally and adjusts the links in your notes to point to the saved files.]
- ⬇️ Global Search and Replace by Mahmoud Fawzy Khalil ^[Search and replace in all vault files]
- ⬇️ Share my plugin list by Benature ☕️/⚡️/♡ ^[Share the enabled plugins in list/table format.]
- ⬇️ Arcana by A-F-V ♡ ^[A collection of AI powered tools]
- ⬇️ Automatic Table Of Contents by Johan Satgé ^[Create a table of contents in a note, that updates itself when the note changes]
- ⬇️ Bluesky by eharris128 ^[Post to Bluesky.]
- ⬇️ BRAT by TfTHacker ♡ ^[Easily install a beta version of a plugin for testing.]
- ⬇️ Find orphaned files and broken links by Vinzent ♡ ^[Find files that are not linked anywhere and would otherwise be lost in your vault. In other words: files with no backlinks.]
- ⬇️ Image Picker by ari.the.elk ♡ ^[Adds a UI panel for quickly selecting images that are in your vault.]
- ⬇️ Lazy Plugin Loader by Alan Grainger ♡ ^[Load plugins with a delay on startup, so that you can get your app startup down into the sub-second loading time.]
- ⬇️ Map View ^[An interactive map view.]
- ⬇️ Media DB by Moritz Jung ♡ ^[A plugin that can query multiple APIs for movies, series, anime, games, music and wiki articles, and import them into your vault.]
- ⬇️ Note Refactor ^[Extract note content into new notes and split notes]
- ⬇️ Novel word count by Isaac Lyman ♡ ^[Displays a word count (and more!) for each file, folder and vault in the File Explorer pane.]
Bike Life

During the years that cycling was at the center of my life, I enjoyed signing up for charity events all over the southeast. For somewhere around $50 I could register for an event that would provide a marked course of 100K or 100 miles with several rest stops along the way, stocked with Gatorade and carbohydrate rich snacks to fuel all the spandex clad riders coming through. Oh, and portable toilets were also provided, which was always helpful. Usually, the organizers would also provide a souvenir shirt to commemorate the event. I've got a closet full of them.
The size of the events varied. If the ride was new and didn't have any kind of history, there might be only 30 or 40 participants. On the other hand, established events, like the rides for multiple sclerosis would stretch over an entire weekend, providing camping, meals, showers and two rides of 100 miles (160.93 km) each. There would be well over 1000 participants, all of whom raised money and paid an entry fee to participate. In North Carolina, the rides start and end in the eastern city of New Bern, in an area that's blessed with smooth, flat roads that don't have a lot of traffic. Typically, if we had to cross any really busy highways, the sheriff's department would station a car there for safety.
One of my favorite was the annual Mountains to the Sea event, known as Cycle North Carolina. Sponsored by the state tourism board, it draws people from all over the US and abroad for seven consecutive days of cycling across the widest state east of the Mississippi River. A normal day's mileage is somewhere around 70 miles (ca. 113 km). Most people bring a tent that is ferried from one town to the next by the event organizers along with their luggage. All the riders have to do each day is eat like their lives depend on it and ride their bikes. Each host town along the way goes all out to make the riders welcome. There are always some unique folks making the journey. One year I rode with a man who rode in business clothes and had heavy racks made from lumber attached to his bike. Since I don't live close to the mountains, the days we spent there were always challenging as we pedaled along the Blue Ridge Parkway with much larger elevation gains and losses than I was used to.
North Carolina has 100 counties, and my goal was to ride my bike in every one of them. Before physical ailments curtailed my riding, I'd managed to pedal at least a few miles in 78 of them. Even today, I find myself miles and miles from home, recognizing spots I cycled by in the past. A few places are really memorable, either because of the difficulty or the scenery or both. There is a climb in western South Carolina up the Greenville water shed that is more than five miles uphill. It looks very imposing when you see it on the day's elevation profile, but it proved to be a pleasant experience, something to feel good about at the end of the day.
That was one of the real joys of riding to me. It wasn't just the endorphin rush from the physical exertion or the scenery or the camaraderie, although all of those things were wonderful, What I loved was the sense of accomplishment achieved by voluntarily doing something difficult. The discomfort from too many miles on a narrow little bike saddle, the hills that make it feel like someone is sticking daggers in your thighs, the miles, and miles in the rain, far from home have faded into the background and what remains are the memories of the joy I felt so many times when mile 100 came earlier than I ever thought it could. I never had the kind of hand/eye coordination needed to be good at sports involving any kind of ball, but when it came to endurance, that I could do.
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Everyday Apps
I never realized this blog would become as popular as it has. I
picked up blogging as a hobby to accompany the other joy in my life,
which is the never-ending process of refining my workflows to use the
absolute best software for every task. Somehow, I ended up with three
blogs, this one, Living Out Loud,
Linkage and another that is a combined fire hose of everything put
together. I'd be lying if I told you that I'm always able to
remember what I've written on each platform. In 2024, I wrote 500K
words. I'm too old to keep all that straight.
I don't think I've ever shared the actual list of apps that I used to get work done here on AppAddict. These aren't the coolest or the most powerful or the best bargains, not necessarily. They are the workhorses that allow me to do what I need to do. I'm not saying they are the best for everyone. If you do a lot over email, you need something more specialized. I don't do much with spreadsheets or presentations, so I'm not even listing those.
Most (not all) of the links here describe my use cases or what I like about the app and why I use it. All links contain download info.
- 📨 Mail Client: Kiwi for Gmail
- 📜 Writing: Obsidian
- 📝 Temporary Notes: Drafts and Scratchpad
- 📆 Calendar: Fantastical legacy features, not paid
- 📖 RSS: Inoreader
- 🌐 Browser: Vivaldi on macOS and iOS
- 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
- 📑 Read It Later: ⭐ Pocket
- 🟦 Photo Management: Apple Photos
- Optimization - Clop
- Screenshots - CleanShotX
- Automation - Dropover
- More Optimization - ImageOptim
- Editing - Toyviewer
- 📋 Clipboard Management - Raycast
- 🔐 Password Management: Apple Passwords and Access
- 🚀 Launcher: Raycast
- 🔐 Security
- VPN: Nord
- DNS: Next DNS
- Firewall: Little Snitch
- Tracker Blocking: Privacy Badger
- Ad Blocking: Ublock Origin
- ☑︎ Task Management: Things 3
- 📱Updating Apps:
- Homebrew: Cork
- Almost Everything Else: MacUpdater
- Etc: Topgrade
- ✍️ Journaling: Day One
My Favorite TV Shows By Decade

I've lived in seven decades. These are my favorite TV shows from each one.
1960s The Andy Griffith Show

I don't know if my affection for this show arose based on it happening in a fictional town in my vert real home state or because I really wanted to hang out with Opie, but I'v enjoyed watching Andy and Barney and Aunt Bea and the rest of the folks from Mayberry my entire life.
1970s MASH and All in the Family

I remember watching MASH when I was seven or eight and not getting many of the jokes but having the feeling that the characters were kind. It made me feel good. By the time the last episode aired, I was a senior in high school and only a few months away from the army myself.

Watching Archie Bunker on All in the Family, I think, taught me the ridiculousness of bigotry and misogyny. It also helped me understand those traits a little better. I loved watching Archie come to little realizations about his own nature.
1980s Hill Street Blues

Until the Golden Age of Television commenced at the end of the 20th century, I considered Hill Street Blues to be the best show ever to air. Every police procedural for the past 30 years owes it a debt of gratitude. The writing, acting and directing were all way ahead of its time and the show's gritty realism and willingness to confront the humanity and shortcomings of the officers assigned to Hill Street Station made it a classic. When I retired from the school system in 2020, I spent the first few months wtching a couple of episodes a day until I'd rewatched the entire run.
1990s NYPD Blue

This is the decade where I watched very little TV. My kids were coming of age and I didn't want them spending a lot of time in from of the tube, plus I was a cheap bastard and didn't want to pay for cable. We spent many weekends with rented VHS tapes from the local video store. Early in the decade though, I was a big fan of NYPD Blue, mostly because I admired Steven Bocho's work so much. It wasn't the same a Hill Street Blues, but the characters were so developed and real. Good show.
2000 The Wire

To me, this show is and will always be the GOAT. I've never thought about the lives of fictional characters as much as I have the ones from this show: Jimmy McNulty, Omar Little, Stringer Bell and all the other cops, gangsters, politicians, reporters, dock workers and teachers who gave every show of every season a special touch. I think I am up to four complete viewings. Whenever someone tells me they are watching the show for the first time, I get so damn jealous.
2010s Stranger Things

I don't know if it is 80s nostalgia or just the superior quality of the show, but I've loved Stranger Things since episode one. Watching the kids from from middle school into high school was handled well and Millie Bobbie Brown's character, 11 (Ellie) is one of the best viewing experiences Netflix has ever offered.
2020s Ted Lasso

Man, was I sad when I the last show of season three aired. And, man was I happy when I found out they were going to make at least one more season - just because we fans want one so badly. This show is unique. It's not really a sports show in the way Friday Night Lights was. Maybe because it is a marriage of English and American culture. I adore the characters. Fucking Roy Kent. Am I right?
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This Week's Bookmarks - Defending Democracy, 100 Greatest TV Performances, True Crime, Travel Tips, Southern Cooking, Pharaoh's Tomb, Lessons from Jim Crow 1.0

Choose Democracy What can I do to fight this coup? - Choose Democracy - If you look, there are people resisting at every level. Blockades of freeways. American Bar Association urging an end to illegal orders. Past inspector generals penning op-eds, as a current inspector general refuses to accept her illegal firing. The Pope slamming VP Vance's theology.
The 100 Greatest TV Performances - When one thinks of the defining TV performances of the past 25 or so years, what comes to mind? Some of the answers included a teacher-turned-drug kingpin, spies working both for and against the U.S. government — and perhaps the defining comedy character of this long political moment, in part for how dark her will to power becomes.
The True Story Behind the Grisly Murder of Cash App Founder Bob Lee - When Cash App creator Bob Lee was stabbed to death on a San Francisco street, it sparked outrage about random violence in the city. The true story of his death was deeply personal.
The Technium: 50 Years of Travel Tips - I've been seriously traveling for more than 50 years, and I've learned a lot. I've traveled solo, and I've led a tour group of 40 friends. I've slept in dormitories and I've stayed in presidential suites with a butler. I've hitchhiked penniless for months, and I've flown by private jet. I've traveled months with siblings, and with total strangers. I've gone by slow boat and I've ridden my bicycle across America, twice.
The Woman Who Introduced Southern Cooking to the World | Finding Edna Lewis | Full Documentary - YouTube - From Freetown, Virginia, to New York City, Edna Lewis carved a remarkable path. She introduced many Americans to seasonal cooking, Southern cooking — the cooking of the Black community in rural Virginia that raised her. Yet despite a life that included fame and acclaim, she is not a household name. In FINDING EDNA LEWIS, Deb Freeman travels to the places where Miss Lewis made her mark.
Thutmose II: First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's - A British-Egyptian team has located it in the Western Valleys of the Theban Necropolis near the city of Luxor. Researchers had thought the burial chambers of the 18th dynasty pharaohs were more than 2km away, closer to the Valley of the Kings.
Surviving Fascism: Lessons from Jim Crow – Scalawag - Accept that this is happening. Denial won't change the outcome.
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Serenity, Wisdom and Power

Coming up with the energy to do battle with the forces of evil means that I can't waste my energy, a finite resource, tilting at windmills. Although I am not a religious person, I respect the wisdom found in the basic prayer that alcoholics recite before AA meetings, known as The Serenity Prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
This prayer, jointly attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr and Winnifred Wygal, became popular in the 1930s. Like many godless heathens in the recovering community, I substitute a belief in a higher power in my mind instead of a deity, but I think folks should do what works for them. My higher power is the collective wisdom of the people I respect. It works for me.
Learning what can and cannot be changed is life's challenge to us all. Some folks believe "you can't fight city hall." Then you have Rosa Parks. Finding out what is possible within our limitations is not easy, but I have learned a few things since I was introduced to this way of thinking. We are all powerless over the past. I wish I'd made all kinds of different choices through the years, but what's done is done. I've learned not waste time wishing my life away on regrettable mistakes.
Another learned skill is when I finally began to differentiate between what I wanted and what I needed. I say that like I'm batting 1.000 in that department, but it is still a work in progress. In 2025, I need to be involved in the struggle against fascism. As an older straight white man, I could easily sit on the sidelines and suffer minimal losses, but I'd have no self-respect and rightfully so. I know that in the current struggle, there will be many defeats, but there will be some victories too. I think it's OK to want to win certain rights back from the right-wing, as long as we can accept that we won't actually get to pick the wins we achieve. This is where courage enters the equation. It's what makes us different from the people we are going up against. They don't have courage. They live in fear; fear that they might get treated the way they've treated minorities, fear that they won't get preferential treatment from employers and the courts. They are not striving for equality. They shudder at the idea. They feel entitled to supremacy.
One of the primary lessons learned in my life was that people have power together. Organized groups of people are what emancipated the enslaved, gained women the right to vote, stopped Jim Crow 1.0, and gave workers in this country what power and rights they have in the workplace. Part of my own received wisdom is to be a part of as many collectives as I have energy for. Isolation and some naive belief in rugged individualism results in the death of a movement. We need each other. We need to give voice to our anger, our fear, our outrage, and our determination. I'm not one to corner an unwilling listener to harangue them on anything, but I am one who will speak in the public square, whenever I find myself in one. People who are too privileged or too lazy to be concerned with what is happening to large swaths of the people in this country might want to police conversations. Good luck with that. I have people I love who are being targeted, a son-in-law who depends on veterans benefits because he was severely injured in combat, a grandson with a debilitating disease, LGBT family members, trans friends and the list goes on.
So, yeah, I need serenity, wisdom, and power and so do you.
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Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation
Protecting your online privacy is an ongoing game of whack-a-mole
with big tech. Google is making a big deal out of eliminating tracking
cookies at the same time is implementing
tracking based on digital fingerprinting for which few protections
exist. One organization working on privacy protection solutions for this
invasive technology is the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It's
free privacy tool is a browser extension, Privacy
Badger, available for Chromium and Firefox browsers. A Safari
version is under development. Since tracker blocking is an ongoing
struggle, it's good to know that the developers at the EFF are actively
working on meeting the challenges of emerging invasive practices by big
tech.
Privacy Badger is not a traditional ad blocker, and it will not replace whatever you are currently using. The extension is focused on preventing companies big and small from tracking where you go on the Internet and what you do there. It doesn't work off a list of URLs. Instead, it uses an algorithm to determine if you are being tracked and takes action to block offending sites. For tracking sites that you want to have a relationship with, such as Meta or X, it provides clickable links to connect to them from external sites when you choose to. I like that it creates an opt-in situation for you.
Privacy badger is compatible with native tracking prevention found in more secure browsers like Librewolf, Firefox and Vivaldi. As the political situation evolves in the US, protecting your browsing habits will become more important than ever. Take the steps needed to keep yourself safe from big tech and the government.
My Favorite Movies by Decade
I've lived in seven decades. These are my favorite movies from each one.
1960s

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Although the book played a more meaningful role in my life, the movie played a part in imparting ideas that shaped my attitudes on justice and race.
1970s

The Godfather (1972) - I did't see this until I was an adult, thank goodness. It's a true masterpiece. Watching it now, more than 50 years after its release, it doesn't feel dated at all.
1980s

Platoon (1986) - My Dad spent two long years of my childhood in Vietnam. The war and its aftermath played an outsized role in my life. Oliver Stone was also a veteran of the war and his insight and skill as a filmmaker made this movie memorable. The performances of Charlie Sheen, Willem Defoe and Tom Berenger were stellar.
1990s

Pulp Fiction (1994) - My favorite movie of all time. I have the script on my iPhone and its one of the few films I have a physical copy of. I'm a go to source of trivia about this movie and I know multiple lines of dialog. One line of the film became an oft used phrase in our house. Whenever any said "Oh Man", someone else would always answer with "I shot Marvin in the face!"
2000s

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) - Just to prove that I'm no status seeking high brow intellectual, I 100% love this Will Ferrell comedy centered around a North Carolina NASCAR driver. It's funny AF. The dialog is memorable and I'm happy just to watch a few scenes from time to time.
2010s

'71 (2014) - Probably the most obscure movie on this list, 1071 does a good job portraying the maddening tactics employed during The Troubles in Northern Ireland as well as the often unexplored side of what armies do with soldiers when they are done with them.
2020s

A Complete Unknown (2024) - This film was so spot on that I floated above my seat in the theater while watching it. Timothée Chalamet deserves a great many awards for his portrayal of Bob Dylan. Edward Norton's role as Pete Seeger was also stellar. The music was as wonderful as it's been since Dylan penned it. Good flick. See it.
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Dawn on the Beach
When I visit the coast, I always try to watch the sunrise right on the beach. It’s one of the truly great free pleasures of life and so beautiful just about every morning.

Sandkorn - Comprehensive Information on Your Apps
Sandkorn, from developer Peter Borgas, is a free app that provides you comprehensive information on the apps installed on a computer, particularly sandboxed apps and what those apps are entitled to access.
Every app you obtain from the Mac App Store today is sandboxed, isolated from other apps and information sources, however, the apps have certain entitlements to different resources on your computers, some of which, but not all, you can see in System Settings > Security and Privacy. On a Mac, what you see in your applications folder are actually bundles you can right-click on an app and select View Package Contents and see what is contained in the bundle. Some apps have plugins and XPC services bundled with them that have their own entitlements. BBedit has 18. Xcode has a whopping 90!
Entitlements are things like:
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Location
- Bluetooth
- Camera
- Microphone
- Printing
- Incoming Network Traffic
- Outgoing Network Traffic
- Folders in your home directory
Although I only have six apps showing in my Security and Privacy Settings that have permission to access my camera, there are 56 apps that are capable of using it. Theoretically, they should ask before I access a feature that requires its use, but I'm just a guy on my couch with a laptop. If you are analyzing software in a highly sensitive area, knowing these entitlements is vital information.
Aside from the information I have already described, Sandkorn is the best app I've found for generating lists based on certain criteria, like architecture. If you're one of the people that recoil in horror over the prospect of using Rosetta on your precious M-series Mac, Sandkorn can tell you if you have any Intel apps installed. It can generate lists of pure Apple Silicon and Universal apps. If you keep apps in a non-standard location, such as an external or secondary hard drive, you can have Sandkorn scan those locations too.
Get additional information on Sandkorn at the developer's website. Check out his other apps like Lingon X and Smultron while you're there.
You can download Sandkorn from the Mac App Store.
Using Reddit the Right Way - a Lesson Learned

Since I got my first account for an online service, Prodigy, in December 1993, I've done my best to use the incredible amount of freely available information. I've used the Internet to strengthen my professional skill set, to increase get more from my hobbies, and to discover possible new interests to investigate. That's been a constant, except for the two years after I retired the first time. A combination of being physically ill coupled with a deep bout of depression left me uninterested in almost everything. I slept like it was my job, didn't keep up with the news of the tech world or the world at large. The only thing I did on the Internet was scroll on my phone at night while waiting for my wife to get sleepy and turn off the light.
I scrolled Reddit and not the good parts, usually. Reddit is full of niche communities, and I fell into some strange ones. Although I have never been a gig worker and the only food delivery app I use is for Dominoes Pizza, I became obsessed withe travails of Grubhub drivers. I became an expert on what sucked about their lives. I also read stories on "Am I The Asshole", which are convoluted, often obviously fake tales where people tell stories about their part in some drama, letting the Internet decide who was at fault. Spending time reading that kind of garbage did not spark joy. It did not teach me anything. It was just a weird stage I went through. I eventually came out of the depression, went back to work, got my mojo working and became the me that you know today. I left weird Reddit behind.
I still use Reddit frequently. If you go to the wrong communities, things can be a little toxic. So, don't do that. You can also find kind, knowledgeable people who will share expert level advice and information just because there is an audience for what they have to offer. An example of that is AskHistorians, a fantastic resource for anyone who enjoys the subject.
Rather than just suggest a bunch of individual communities, I made a few custom feeds which consolidate some of the best and most interesting places, along with a couple of feeds that are suited for nothing more than mindless scrolling when you need a break from the real world. Sometimes cat videos and the like are the best antidote to endless stories about the fascists taking over or long detailed articles on networking topologies if tech is your jam.
Custom Feeds by Amerpie on Reddit
You can add these to your Reddit sidebar as a custom feed or you can subscribe to individual communities
tech 36 Sub Reddits
This collection is heavily focused an Apple related software and devices. It contains posts on Mac and iOS apps and on different flavors of Mac computers, iPhones, iPads and watches. There are communities on a few productivity related Mac apps from independent developers. There is some tech humor and info for people who have worked in tech, but you don't need to CS degree o get value from this feed. Some of the communities in these collections are.
- macOS (I am a moderator here)
- Obsidian
- r/MacApps (My favorite)
- Tales From Tech Support
politics 28 Sub Reddits
My politics are decidedly left of center. I have a strong anti-MAGA attitude and I support communities under attack by the forces of darkness in Washington. This collection of Reddit communities about Resistance and Fighting back. It isn't focused on wonky white papers and middle of the road "let's just get along" niceties. Some of the communities in these collections are.
- Trump Criticizes Trump: 35,000+ Tweets, No Self Awareness
- Late Stage Capitalism
- r/PoliticalHumor 2024: The Sequel Nobody Asked For
- MarchAgainstNazis
edification 56 Sub Reddits
When I want something on the more intellectual and stimulating side, this is the collection I browse. It's heavy on some of my favorite subjects: history, science, photography (just photos, not tech and gear) and a few feel good type communities. Some of the communities in these collections are.
Scrollfest 1 and Scrollfest 2 132 Sub Reddits
This is where I go when I don't really want to think too hard. Just let me look at some funny pictures and enjoy some Internet culture so I can keep up with what the kids are talking about. Some of the communities in these collections are.
- What Is This Thing?
- ThatsInsane
- What's Wrong With Your Dog? | I mean, really...
- Tip of My Tongue: When you can't remember that…thing…
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Discombobulated

After working hard to create a cozy home office in which to begin my retired life, I've barely gotten to use it. The joys of homeownership provided me with an opportunity to practice patience and acceptance this week when my previously bulletproof natural gas furnace quit working on a 17-degree night. We weren't able to get an HVAC tech out to the house until late in the day when (of course) the parts stores were already closed. It didn't matter though because the parts we needed, $1500 worth, are only available through special order. To top it all off, a winter storm, rare in our region, rolled into town.
Our house is the classic two-story split-level. It's wide open and the only spaces with doors are bedrooms and bathrooms. The living and working areas are impossible to warm with just space heaters, no matter how good they are. After sitting around under blankets in a house with Interior temps hovering around 50 degrees, we opted to get a hotel room close to Wonder Woman's job — also my former employer.
She had a three-hour meeting this morning over Microsoft Teams. Everyone is working remotely because of the storm. Since we're in a hotel, I got to sit in on the meeting too, listening to my old co-workers discuss subjects I very much want to leave behind. I even had to jump in and provide tech support to my bride when her company owned laptop experienced power issues. I'm just trying to roll with the punches and accept the things I can't change. It does no good to get worked up about stuff out of my control. Fate isn't concerned about my carefully cultivated plans for the first week of retirement.
Tomorrow we are traveling out of town for the weekend getaway I requested for my birthday. Wonder Woman and my daughter both got me the tech stuff I wanted as gifts, namely extra RAM to give me new home lab plenty of oomph. I joke that I want my system to be so powerful that it makes all the lights in the neighborhood go dim when I reboot things. I even maxed out the Internet speed at our house, something I am sadly missing on crappy hotel Wi-Fi.
Our weekend plans are not that complicated. We are going to visit a couple of restaurants that even my international hometown doesn't feature, including my favorite Lebanese place. Wonder Woman will get to run in a park she hasn't visited since April when she did a 50-miler there. Her next big adventure is in South Carolina next month, a charity event where the participants are charged with running a 5K every hour for five hours. I'll be there crewing, of course, trying to keep her spirits up as the inevitable fatigue sets in. She's never run a race in this format, so it will be new for both of us.
I'll pick up my postponed activities next week. None of my plans and goals will suffer one bit because of the delay. Until then, I'm just rolling with the punches.
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Why is it always DNS?

Why is DNS, the translation service between numbers and dots and the words we label our websites with, always the problem. When all the lights are green and blinking appropriately, you know it's DNS. In the glory days of Mac OS X Server, you had to get DNS working before you could do anything else. It brought life to a standstill. These days when you're supporting end users and they can't get their BYOD laptop or phone to connect, you better believe that free VPN they got from FreeVPNdotcom has hosed their DNS settings beyond belief. It is always DNS.
Free Downloads from AppAddict
I have a couple of downloads for you in this edition of AppAddict.
Automation
Although I am in no way a developer, I have created a couple of repositories on GitHub and placed some files there you may find useful. I am a big fan of Mac automation apps. There are plenty of tools that are inexpensive and relatively powerful for making the work you do easier and more streamlined. With the help of timed triggers, you can get your Mac to do things for you while you are asleep or away from the keyboard.
Take a minute to look over the tasks I accomplish with just three apps, and then head over to GitHub and download the configuration files for each of the apps. You can download the macros, rules, and triggers I have already written for these three powerhouse apps. Use them. Take them apart and examine them. Improve on them. It won't be hard! AppAddict Automation Settings
Keyboard Maestro
My Top 10
Keyboard Maestro Macros
Hazel
My
Favorite Actions for Hazel, the Preeminent File Management Software for
the Mac
Better Touch Tool
Better
Touch Tool Favorites
Quotes
I have collected quotes for years. I am still nursing an iOS app that was deprecated nine years ago to manage the portable version of my quotes library. I also have over 500 quotes saved as Markdown notes on Obsidian. You can find various Mac and iOS apps to manage quotes that extra features like tagging, biographies of the authors and room for links to the source material. You can download my collection here
For your Mac, try this - Quotemarks - Quote Notebook
For iOS, this one is great - Thoughts - Inspiration Manager
Zilker Park, Austin, Texas
I love that Austin has this wild park (Zilker) right in the middle of the city. I’ve been going there with my grandchildren since they were small.
Backyard at Dawn
I set up my new home office, so this is the view I get at dawn while drinking my coffee.
Did You Ever Get in Trouble for Reading?
Reading to my grandson
I can't claim to having been an early reader. I learned in school, not as some precocious toddler. My mother read to me all the time but rather than learning how to do it myself, I just memorized my favorite books. I didn't go to kindergarten because it wasn't mandatory when I was of age. I didn't get put into the smart kids reading group to start off with because I switched schools early into first grade. Once I got the fundamentals down, though, I wanted to read more than I wanted to eat. I was way into adulthood before I stopped carrying a book around with me everywhere.
I rushed through every assignment for years so that I could read whatever book I was interested in at the time. There are comments on my elementary school report cards about me neglecting other responsibilities to pursue what my teacher called "pleasure reading" an activity she complained that I put before everything else. My excessive reading bothered her so much that she would assign me dictionary pages to copy by hand just so she wouldn't have to look at me with my nose in a book. There were always books in our house. Both of my parents have been voracious readers my whole life. My siblings are also book people. So are my kids.
When I was growing up, my favorite of all the many towns we lived in was the one where we lived closest to the library. We spent so much time there and the staff got so fond of us that years after we moved, they called just to see how we were doing. We spent two summers in that little town and both years I won prizes for reading the most books for older elementary kids and my little sister won the prize for the younger grades. The money I made selling newspapers and recycling glass soda bottles went for books, including comic books. When we would make trips to the used books store in a larger town an hour away, I would agonize over which of my new books I would read first. I went to that same used book store for 40 years. My kids grew up going there and I even got a chance to take my grandchildren. It finally closed about five years ago, sadly.
I have pretty sizable bookshelves in my home. I've yet to read quite a few of the books I own, but that in no way will keep me from buying more. Amazon's recent decided to make it impossible for its customers to download the books they've bought after this month. I just had to go through the nearly 500 Kindle editions that Wonder Woman and I have accumulated since we started a joint account in 2012. We have about the same number of audiobooks, which totally count as reading in my estimation.
Since I can be a bit obsessive about things I like, I've read the complete works of several prolific authors, including Robert A Heinlein (32 books, 59 short stories) and Ed McBain (55 books in his 82nd Precinct series). The worst thing that ever happened to my reading habit was the Internet. It competes for my attention more than anything else ever has. It's just another form of reading, however. It's horrible for my attention span, but i resist the urge to go on frequent YouTube binges, preferring a steady mix of blogs, news and social media.
I carried books in my Army rucksack when I was in the service. I used to carry a book up in the guard tower of the prison I worked at when I was on third shift. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I gladly packed the extra weight of a Kindle Paperwhite and so did my wife. We agreed early in our marriage to never say anything to each other about buying books. That was a sacred promise and one we've kept. I believe that my love of reading and my constant desire to learn about all the many things that have interested me is what allowed me to be successful in life without a formal education. I could have made more dough with a degree of some sort, but not a lot more. Truth be told, a life reading whatever I wanted sounds more to my liking than having to read what some stuffy professor assigned me any way.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, Needed Now More than Ever

Since my political wakening in my 30s, I've done my best to financially support charities and organizations who I consider to be not just beneficial for society, but downright heroic. These include:
American Civil Liberties Union Brady United - Campaign Against Gun Violence Southern Poverty Law Center During the 1980s, my home state, North Carolina was plagued by white supremacist groups. The worst of these was led by a former Green Beret master sergeant named Frazer Glenn Miller. The White Patriot Party, Miller's organization was eventually sued out of existence by the Southern Poverty Law Center, led by Morris Dees, an attorney that Miller plotted to kill.
The SPLC, founded in 1971 in Alabama has successfully shut down numerous Klan and Nazi groups, winning large judgments against them in court and distributing 100% of the proceeds to the victims of racism and their survivors.
The SPLC also maintains Hatewatch which actively monitors the far right movement in the United States. President Trump pardoned two national leaders of active hate organizations, The Oath Keepers and The Proud Boys who had received long prison sentences for anti-government activities around the 2020 election. Monitoring these types of groups is vital in the current political climate.
You can also refer to the Extremists and Ideologies section of the SPLC website to track what hate groups are active your area.
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Battery Monitor: Health, Info
In the modern era, a time when most people us laptop computers as opposed to desktops, keeping up with your battery's remaining charge is something we've trained ourselves to do. There are apps that let you make extremely detailed plans to carefully manage how your battery charges. These apps provide a wealth of information about your battery's lifespan and electrical data. In normal operation, they keep your battery from charging past 80% to help prolong its lifespan. They will also run a calibration cycle to allow your battery to come close to fully discharging and the fully charging. These practices are reputed to be necessary to get the longest lifespan for your battery. The two most widely used apps for this type of management are: BatFi and Al Dente.
Not everyone believes these practices are needed or, indeed, are beneficial. They are satisfied with just monitoring their battery's health. A good free app for providing the information you need is Battery Monitor: Health, Info from Rocky Sand Studio, Ltd. It has a simple but useful feature set.
Features
- Charge percent and time in menu bar
- Detailed battery information
- Configurable low and full battery alert
- Configurable Themes
You can get Battery Health Monitor from the App Store.
Good People, It Seems

I am indifferent to celebrity culture most of the time. While I admire talented people who can act or sing or hit home ruins and free throws, I don't find anything particularly heroic about it. I am all for athletes and entertainers extracting as much wealth as they can from billionaire sports team owners and the stock holders of movie studios. I'm a little less enthusiastic about concert ticket prices, but then, the cost of music is pretty cheap otherwise. I don't think for a minute that most celebrities are just regular people, only richer. Living with constant adulation is bound to end up making you weird after a while. None of my minor brushes with celebrity have been terrible. As a kid, I watched a minor league baseball game with Bob Feller, a baseball Hall of Fame member who talked to me for the whole game. I walked by Will Smith and his son in San Francisco and was delighted to see them beat boxing to one another, just goofing off.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan opening new doctor’s office in North Carolina - Today, there was a news article about one of North Carolina's biggest celebrities, Michael Jordan, who jas a bit of a reputation for being prickly. He just funded a medical clinic here, the fourth one he's done that for. The clinic is in Wilmington, where he grew up in the same neighborhood where some of my grandkids live. They attend the same high school that he did. I think opening medical clinics that serve uninsured people qualifies you for good person status. Sure, MJ still has plenty of money, but he's doing more than many rich athletes do.
Other celebrities who seem to have a good heart:
Lebron james - I Promise School - Lebron James Family Foundation and Akron Public Schools
Dolly Parton - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Robin Williams - A Tribute to Robin Williams - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
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Work Friends, Real Friends

We spend so much of our lives at our job, often more than we spend with our families. Somehow, it has become common in this country to place an impersonal distance between ourselves and the people we work with. Folks are quick to tell you that your co-workers are not your friends. I suppose the rationale for that is simple. People depend upon their jobs and can be expected to look out for themselves first and foremost in relation to employment. Although they may seem friendly and personable, given the chance to earn more money or to look good to management, coworkers can almost be expected to chuck you under a bus. Being loyal only to one's self seems to be expected. I think that's a horrible way to live, and I struggled with it all my working life.
In most jobs I had, I left the relationships behind when I moved on to the next opportunities. That is a good demonstration of the difference between friends and coworkers. Thankfully, there is an exception or two. On the job I held the longest (20 years), There are a couple of people I grew close to and with whom I stay in touch. I am about 15 years older than both of them. We hired them when they were pretty fresh out of school. I knew them before they were married, and I've watched them become fathers and move on in their careers.
Peyton came onboard as an intern, wearing a backwards baseball hat and his beloved Cheerios tee shirt. He had a degree in history from our state's flagship university in Chapel Hill, but his interest had turned to tech. He had a knack for figuring things out, and he was exceptionally polite. A very likable guy, it was easy to make him laugh, and I tried to do that at every opportunity. Coincidentally, he grew up living in the same house where I'd lived back in the 70s. He was relatively apolitical, and I harangued him for years with my left wing outlook on life, even taking him with me to organizing meetings out of town. When he and his first wife split up, and he was at a low point, I loaned him my spare bike and took him out riding. He fell in love with the sport and is still riding today. We even rode across the state together one year on a bike tour. He eventually moved on to other and better paying tech jobs, ending up working in higher ed. Now in his mid-40s, he recently became a father for the first time (to twins). He shares pictures of them with me and a few other folks constantly.
I'm friends with another former co-worker from that job because of his extreme open-mindedness. Jeremy grew up in the Pentecostal Holiness Church in a small town east of where I live. When I met him, he had very traditional conservative values. I more or less harassed him for years. Those were the days before I quit drinking and my personality, to put it mildly, was a bit abrasive. When I finally sobered up and started treating people more like I wanted to be treated, we became friends, talking at great length about religion and politics and actually listening to each other instead of trying to score points. He went through an examination of his faith that had little to do with me. He came out of it still a believer, but with a much less traditional outlook on life. Jeremy has a real knack for analyzing people, and I always respected the conclusions he came up with. He started his own business when he left our shared job, and it is still doing well. We strike up conversations at random times about random things. I have no doubt that we will never lose touch.
I hear many men say that as we get older, it becomes more difficult to make new friendships. That's true, I think. Holding on to the friends we do have should really be a high priority. I can think of few things more valuable.
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Busted
Wonder Woman - Busted. She ran a marathon the day before and was supposed to be out, going for an easy walk, but when I saw her, she was running.
FlexiBackup Solves Real World Problems
I faced a concerning issue last year when it was time to replace
my iPhone. For some reason, neither Apple nor I could solve. For over
two years, my phone had failed to back up to iCloud. Over the 16 years
I've been using Apple's flagship product, I've had to perform restores
on multiple occasions. I'm not comfortable going without a backup of any
technology device I rely on. The old school solution when iCloud doesn't
work is to connect your phone to a Mac and back everything up to the
computer's hard drive. The location where the backup is hard-coded,
however. You don't get to choose a location for the save files. It's
going on your hard drive whether you like it or not. My problem was that
I only had a 256 GB hard drive and the backup from my phone consumed
over 90 GB. After doing a lot of research and doing some hacking, a
janked together a system using symbolic links to get the backup on to an
external hard drive. It was a pain.
If I'd had FlexiBackup from indy developer, Kah Seng, things would have been much easier. Seng's new app takes care of setting an external drive as the repository for iOS and iPadOS backups when you do them locally. If you have multiple family members using the same small iCloud storage account, this is an ideal app to add to your Mac, as long as each person has physical access to a computer where it is installed. You can do a backup and a restore by connecting a device to your Mac, launching FlexiBackup and running the native Mac utility.
FlexiBackup requires macOS 14.6 or later and is compatible with all iPhones and iPads, regardless of the iOS version installed. The app is available for $5.99 on Gumroad. There is no free trial, but it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
On Identity

Many adamantly profess to hate labels when it comes to people. They argue that as complex, individualistic beings, our true nature can't be captured with conventional language. Well, of course it can't, but unfortunately, until we develop the ability to do Vulcan mind melds, we are going to have to use our words.
Most of my adult life, I've used the convenient crutch of describing myself by my job title, conflating what I did with who I was. It was an easy and convenient (and kind of lazy) way to self identify. Of course, there are numerous ways to label ourselves. We do it by our relationships. I get to be Mr. Wonder Woman quite a bit because my wee, shy, introverted wife attracts a lot of attention by virtue of a high-profile job and her athletic prowess. When I go visit my dad, despite being a grandfather myself, I get defined as being Johnny's boy, which kind of makes me feel like Tony Soprano.
As a retired person, I suppose I'll use that label from now on and let people make assumptions based on that, since most of them will be true. They will also make assumptions based on pale skin, gender and age and most of those assumptions will not be correct. I'm not a contrarian just to be one. I am, unfortunately it seems, a minority among white men my age. Most of my peers are conservatives whose actions demonstrate a belief that people of color, gays and women have gone too far, gotten too many privileges and no longer know their place. Some of them are willing to say that out loud. Others will deny supporting those beliefs while doing absolutely nothing to stand in the way of their enforcement.
It is neither lazy nor wrong to assign characteristics to groups of people as long as you keep the exceptions in mind. I make plenty of disparaging remarks about white people because, let's face it, we have a poor track record in many areas where I am keeping score. Conservatives disparage identity politics. It makes them angry when we stubbornly point out systemic racism, systemic homophobia, systemic sexism. Now that they've won the fifth-closest election in American history and labeled it a mandate (because the truth doesn't matter)l, they are doing their level best to erase any mention of Wounded Knee, Selma, and women's suffrage from school libraries.
Suffice, to say, for me, worrying about labels is not something I engage in. I'm not bothered by anyone's good faith attempt to describe a person or group of people in polite, conventional terms. And, certainly, if you are describing a group of obnoxious assholes, feel free to label them as such. If I don't think you can defend your assertion, I'll probably let you know.
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Genealogy Why?

The first time I heard of someone who'd done genealogical research, was in the 70's when Alex Hailey's book, Roots was made into the most talked about TV series ever produced up to that time. Despite all the obstacles faced by scant records for enslaved people, Hailey famously traced his ancestors all the way back to West Africa.
Today, genealogical research is an industry involving multi-billion dollar companies and often DNA technology. It's entirely possible to sit at a computer and trace your family back through generations without any of the hassle of visiting cemeteries, courthouses and your great-aunt Betsy. That's the "How" part of it. What is the why?
For me, it was a life long interest in history, coupled with an interest in the stories my grandparents told. I am the furthest thing you can get from being a candidate for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, even though my ancestry would support membership. My mother's side of the family is descended from Quakers who were abolitionists. My favorite relation from that war was drafted more than once. He served three shorts stints in the Army and always came back home as soon as he could. I could not find any record indicating that he deserted, but he wasn't eager to be there, that much is definite.
Another ancestor from the 19th century named Moses Parker got married and had 12 children. Then his wife died, so he got married again and had 12 more more children.
If you are interested in looking over old census records and finding out how many cousins you have, you can get started today.
NGS Recommends...17 Important Free Websites for Genealogy Research - The National Genealogical Society (frequently referred to as NGS) is here to help individuals learn about their family history. We are a non-profit organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia. For 120 years, we have been the leader in teaching genealogical research skills and providing a pathway to scholarly work
Find your family. Free Genealogy Archives - Everything on FamilySearch is Free. A completely free genealogy database website. You can use an Advanced Search tool by surname, record type, and/or place to access millions of records. The FamilySearch Wiki is a “go to” resource to find what exists for a wide range of family history topics, even beyond FamilySearch’s extensive databases.
Ancestry | Family Tree, Genealogy & Family History Records - Start your family tree for free. Connect with your family story on Ancestry® and discover the what, where, and who of how it all leads to you.
Genealogy related news/articles and discussion - A subreddit about all things genealogy
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Improve your Google Searches
I am in the process of moving all my Internet research to Kagi, but I wrote this for someone who needed these instructions today.
Google, the advertising company that also has a search engine, is more interested in having you click on things it gets paid for than it is showing you the information you are looking for. Of course, it is also tracking every breath you take in case it figures out how to extract money from the very air you breathe. There are a couple of steps you can take to generate more useful information from the company's search results.
Use a Different URL for your searches
Google is the default search engine in most browsers. It pays billions of dollars for that privilege on iOS alone - one of the reasons your choice of search engines is limited on Apple products. Everyone knows the standard address for a Google search is just https://google.com. When you search there, you get a bunch of useless AI crap and ""suggested links". If you want the good old 10 Blue Links of yesteryear, add “udm=14” to your default search URL, so it reads as “https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14” instead of Google dot com.
To set this up in Chrome, go into Settings, then Search engine > Manage search engines> Site search.
You can also do this in other browsers and in launchers like Raycast for Mac. Other search utilities like DevonAgentLite also support it.
Filter SEO Churn With Ublacklist
Ublacklist is an extension that totally blocks certain domains from appearing in your Google search results. You can also get it for other browsers. Once you have the extension installed, head over to this Codeberg page to subscribe to lists of sites to exclude from your search results. These lists were inspired by the article How Google is killing independent sites like ours on HouseFresh and Detailed.com's How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results.
There are more specialized but still helpful lists at Subscriptions | uBlacklist
This railroad crossing in on one of the cycling routes my club takes. It’s been the cause of many, many concussions through the years when riders didn’t cross properly.
A farm pond in Gray’s Creek, NC in winter. The next year, swollen by rains from Hurricane Matthew, the dam burst. It has never been rebuilt.
Learning Linux

If you have an old computer lying around, so what i did, for less than $100, I bought an SSD and 32MB of RAM and had a machine perfectly capable of running the free operating system, Linux. Not only is the operating system free, there are also a great many apps available at no cost. If you enjoy tech and would like to expand your horizons a bit, try this experimint in your spare time.
Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus to install| Ubuntu
New Here? Let's Get Started! - YouTube
How to Build a Linux Media Server - A step by step guide -
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Moments Worth Savoring

I decided not to let the never-ending fire hose of WTF coming out of Washington ruin every moment of my life. I still read the news once a day. I still reach out to people affected by all the random craziness. There are numerous federal workers in my hometown, Most of them work on Ft. Bragg, but there are also quite a few who work for the VA, including our daughter. Her job is safe, she's told. For my own mental health, I've been trying to be mindful when doing things that bring me joy, to really savor them and to take in the experience.
Picked Out a Concert
Wonder Woman and I haven't been to a concert in recent memory. As much as I love music, the prospect of dropping a thousand bucks for a weekend's worth of tickets, lodging, parking and restaurant food took the appeal out of the experience. Tonight, on a whim, we went through a list of upcoming shows to see if there was anyone we could see without having to sell a kidney. Bob Dylan is coming to Raleigh in May, and we thought about that for a minute. We kept looking, opting out of a long list of senior citizens like Rod Stewart, Billy Idol and Rick Springfield. We finally found a home-grown band I dearly love, Old Crow Medicine Show, playing a couple of hours away at a venue with festival seating. Sold! Now I have a show to look forward to and a few albums to put on repeat until we go to the show.
Building a Home Lab
I got my hands on a couple of old computers, spent a few bucks on some extra storage and RAM, and now I have a little mission control center set up in my new home office. I installed Linux on one of the machines, the first time I've messed with that in years. I upped the speed of my home Internet connection, since I won't have any more of that sweet fiber optic action from my job any more. I'll have fun trying to figure out new uses for this old hardware.
The Regular
On Saturdays (and Sundays), I usually go to the diner at the end of my street for breakfast, They were exceptionably busy this morning, and it took the server a little longer than usual to get to me. I wasn't bothered in the least. When she came to the table, she brought me my usual drink order without even asking me what I wanted. Then, to make me feel extra special, she asked which of the two meals I alternate between was going to be my choice today. Hundreds of people are in and out of this place every day. It feels good to be remembered and treated with such warmth.
Keeping Up with the Kiddos
I've been hearing from my kids a lot lately. My son's 10-year-old Prius finally died and he was excited to send me a picture of its replacement, a nice looking Jeep that will serve him well driving around the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin. My poor daughter waited until now, she's soon to turn 40, to get poison ivy. What's worse was that she got it on her face. I had to offer up some sincere fatherly sympathy for her plight. I've also started texting some of my grandkids more regularly lately. I love to send all of them pictures I find of them "back when they were cute." Of course, they are still cute now, but teasing them is my love language.
Good Email
I have a few folks I exchange messages with regularly these days—all people I've met through blogging and Mastodon. My app review blog gets many visitors and sparks some conversations, but on good days, the tech people who have questions and comments about what I write there, open up a bit and we move on to other subjects, not that I mind chatting about tech. I like having folks who have similar backgrounds and opinions to get to know. Typically we just talk about life experiences, with only a little moaning about the fascist takeover. No one is losing sight of the country's precarious position, but we aren't resigned to living in a gloomfest either.
So, there you have it. I looked for a few good things, and I found them. I encourage you to do the same. We will survive this together.
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File List Export for Mac
One of the apps I recently picked up from the new Bundlehunt sale is File List Export by developer Georgios Trigonakis. This simple but surprisingly powerful utility is available for just a dollar right now. The normal price in the App Store is $7.99. You can get a trial version at the developer's website.
I tested the app by having it create a spreadsheet of my Obsidian vault containing 9722 files and 1843 folders. You can choose an output file in either csv or xlsx format. By default the app does not calculate folder sizes to speed up the analysis, but you can toggle it on if you want the information. On my M2 MacBook Air, the process was still relatively fast.
The most useful feature of the app is its ability to export metadata from files, particularly helpful for photos, video and music. Because the data ends up in a spreadsheet, you can manipulate and sort it in all kids of ways. If you have album artwork associated with your music files, it even gets exported into your spreadsheet. You also get the path of every file in your analysis, which can be helpful if you need to operate in the terminal.
For Every File, You Can Get This Info:
- File name
- Date modified
- Date created
- Kind
- Size
- Path (the location of the file)
- Comments
- Tags
- Version
- Pages
- Authors/Artist
- Title
- Album
- Track NO
- Genre
- Year
- Duration
- Audio BitRate
- Audio Encoding Application
- Audio Sample Rate
- Audio Channels
- Dimensions
- Pixel Width
- Pixel Height
- Total Pixels
- Height DPI
- Width DPI
- Color Space
- Color Profile
- Alpha Channel:
- Creator
- Video Bit Rate
- Total Bit Rate
- Codecs
- md5
- sha256
Exif Metadata for Your Photos
- Camera Make
- Description
- Camera Model Name
- Owner Name
- Serial Number
- Copyright
- Software
- Date Taken
- Lens Make
- Lens Model
- Lens Serial Number
- ISO
- FNumber
- Focal Length
- Flash
- Orientation
- Latitude
- Longitude
- Maps URL
- Camera Make
- Description
- Camera Model Name
- Owner Name
- Serial Number
- Copyright
- Software
- Date Taken
- Lens Make
- Lens Model
- Lens Serial Number
- ISO
- Fstop
- Focal Length
- Flash
- Orientation
- Latitude
- Longitude
- Maps URL
Koalas are adorable to look at and fun to photograph, but if you’ve ever thought about adopting one, do yourself a favor and Google “Gumnut and Craigslist” and you can thank me later.
This Week's Bookmarks - 50 Movies, How Many Cigs, Outrage Fatigue, Cringe Matrix, Photo Creepiness, WikiTok, Font Generator

50 of the Most Rewatchable Movies Ever Made | Lifehacker - Because sometimes, you just want a known quantity, and some movies seem designed to be watched again and again. Others simply go down so agreeably that you can't help but find them comforting.
Catalog – HOW MANY CIGARETTES? - There were 124 cigarettes smoked on Casablanca, 54 in Fight Club. Look up your favorite movie and find how soon the starts will dies of lung cancer.
Outrage Fatigue Is Real. Here’s Why We Feel It and How to Cope | Scientific American - Repeated exposure to outrage-inducing news or events can lead to emotional exhaustion. An expert who studies online outrage says there are ways to cope
The Cringe Matrix - by Haley Nahman - Despite being treated in the popular imagination as something specific—earnestness, maybe—I think cringe is more layered and complex than that.
They See Your Photos - Your photos reveal a lot of private information. In this experiment, we use the Google Vision API to see how much can be inferred about you from a single photo. See what they see.
WikiTok - Instead of doom scrolling midlessly through some corporate owned social media mind number, spend your time on this endless feed of Wikipedia articles and learn a bit when you get bored.
Font Generator - 𝓒𝓸𝓹𝔂 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝓟𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮 Fancy Cool Text - Make your text fun and stylish with our fancy text generator 🌟 featuring a wide variety of font styles ready for easy copy and paste.
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I Picked My Top 20 Apps

I'm not really bothered by having more than 500 apps installed on my Mac. According to Lingon X, I have 102 apps either as login items or running in the background as helper apps. I write app reviews on my other blog, AppAddict every day, always something I have downloaded, installed and used on my personal Mac. I love my Setapp subscription because it gives me an ever-growing library of high-quality apps to try out for the same monthly price. But if all this goodness evaporated suddenly and i was forced to run vanilla macOS plus twenty apps to get my work done, which out of all the ones that own would I choose? Answering this requires some tough choices. Many of these apps I have been using for more than a decade, although a few have been adopted in the past year.
Since I am retired, I no longer need any networking, development or analysis apps. I use my Mac primarily for research and for writing. The graphics work I do is simple and straightforward. Even though I have Pixelmator and Acorn, I end up using simpler tools most of the time.
- Obsidian - an extensible note-taking app that is also well suited for writers. I've composed more than 500K words in it during the past year.
- Clean Shot X - the best screenshot utility
- Raycast - an app launcher that handles much more
- Keyboard Maestro - the ultimate Mac automation tool
- Vivaldi Browser- my choice for web browsing for reasons
- PopClip - a text selection utility
- TextExpander - a snippets app
- Drafts - a text automation app
- Day One - the preeminent journaling app for macOS
- Default Folder X - an enhancement for open and save dialog boxes
- Hazel - a Mac automation tool for file management
- DropZone 4- a file shelf utility
- Toyviewer - a Preview replacement for images with editing capabilities
- Qspace | AppAddict - a substitute for Finder
- Scratchpad - a menu bar utility for floating notes
- BarTender - I didn't buy into the hysteria, I just set up some Little Snitch rules
- Better Touch Tool - multi-purpose automation app
- Find Any File - a search utility
- Things 3- a task manager
- Kiwi for Gmail - Not a well-known email app, but one I've used off and on for years
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The Story of How I Didn't Murder a Drunk Professional Turkey Killer

For a while before I went on active duty, I was in the National Guard, assigned to Headquarters Company of an armored battalion of M1 tanks. My military job at the time was being part of a crew operating an armored personnel carrier with a 4.2 inch mortar mounted in it. That's the biggest mortar the Army has. It fires a round larger than 105 Howitzer. There is no trigger mechanism on a mortar. Instead, a firing pin is mounted at the bottom of a long tube. The ammunition bearer fixes an explosive charge to the bottom of the mortar shell. He hands it to the assistant gunner who fits the rear end of the shell into the mortar tube. When the gunner, who is responsible for using a telescopic sight to aim the weapon, gives him the go ahead, the assistant gunner releases the round. It slides down the tube until it hits the firing pin. This detonates the charge and the shell is launched with a range of about 4000 meters.
There are four types of shells that can be fired from a 4.2 inch mortar: high explosive, white phosphorus, smoke and chemical weapons. I fired all of those except the chemical rounds which, although manufactured by the hundreds of thousands, were never used. If the gun crew didn't keep the tube clean, the debris could interfere with the round sliding down the tube, resulting in what is known as a hang fire. While I was in this unit, another crew of mortar gunners firing from the same range where we trained had a hang fire while firing white phosphorus rounds. The resulting explosion killed everyone in the gun crew and badly burned members firing from nearby positions. It's dangerous work. You're dealing with stuff designed to be as lethal as possible, and there isn't a lot of room for error.
My section leader, a sergeant, was named Larry “Big Dog” Evans. His full-time civilian job was killing turkeys in a poultry processing plant in town. To my knowledge, I never saw him completely sober, ever, not once. He was funny and profane and didn't have a mean bone in his body. I wanted to kill him. He made live fire exercises a nightmare. All of his mortar training had been on the job. Whereas I had actually been through indirect fire school at Ft. Benning. Big Dog had been a specialist 5 clerk-typist who was converted into a sergeant and squad leader when the unit's mission and the Army rank structure was changed. He had never been to an NCO class. Such was life in the National Guard in the decade after the end of the Vietnam War.
This particular drill weekend, we were live firing high explosive and white phosphorus rounds at Ft. Bragg. Our platoon leader was a nervous second-lieutenant who ran a convenience store for his father-in-law. He was scared of enlisted men and was seldom seen. Big Dog was drunker than Cooter Brown and couldn't get the sights lined up with aiming stakes, no matter how hard he tried. It's important when firing big weapons that you know where you are aiming because of the whole thing about them killing everyone in the location where they land. I was having to do my job and his, a situation I loudly protested, even though I was just a PFC.
My situation wasn't made any better by the situation at home. I was 19, married, with a son already and a daughter on the way. My civilian job had just ended unexpectedly. It was one I'd uprooted my entire family to move several counties away from where we knew people. I had no idea what I was going to do about that, and now I had the stress of trying not to die at the hands of a drunk professional turkey killer. Finally, someone called the company First Sergeant on the radio and told him that he might want to come prevent Big Dog's death at my hands.
When he arrived at the training area in his jeep, he called a cease fire and training stopped. He summoned me to the vehicle and asked me to tell him what was going on. I could hardly talk, but I sputtered out the story of the dangerous incompetence I felt was endangering everyone. The First Sergeant promised to take Big Dog off the range and talk to him about drinking during training. Since this was a wholly normal situation because being inebriated was his normal state, the First Sergeant wanted to know why this particular instance had gotten me so wound up. I told him about losing my job and not knowing what to do. He immediately told me that he was a building superintendent for a commercial construction firm. He said that if I would come to his job site on Monday, he would hire me. All I had to do was promise to calm down and quit threatening to kill his NCOs. I told him I thought I could handle that.
The following Monday, I showed up where the company was building medical offices and went to work. I kept that job until I finally enlisted in the regular Army. I'll always be grateful for that man's leadership and guidance. He was old school and I learned a lot from him.
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When I worked at a large rural high school, I used to take a walk every day at lunchtime, even when we’d have a rare southern snow storm.
Lorikeets, a nectar eating parrot found in Australia. It is common along the eastern seaboard, from northern Queensland to South Australia.
My Raycast Extensions
A Mastodon friend asked me to list the Raycast extensions I have
installed. Raycast is a replacement for Spotlight that has considerable
superpowers in its vast extension library. I use Raycast as my clipboard
manager, emoji picker, window manager and I do quite a lot of image
modification with it. As you can see, there are many more features
available.
90% of the feature set is free. The $10 a month pro subscriptions buys the ability to sync your settings between computers, interact with AI advanced features and some more options with Raycast notes. You also get regular backups of your settings.
You can see a categorized list of extensions here.
89 installed extensions
Basic Bookmarks https://raycast.com/rauno/bmrks
2FA Code Finder https://raycast.com/yuercl/imessage-2fa
Alt-Text Generator https://raycast.com/jack\_casica/alt-text-generator
Amphetamine https://raycast.com/gstvds/amphetamine
Apple Reminders https://raycast.com/raycast/apple-reminders
Auto Quit App https://raycast.com/koinzhang/auto-quit-app
Battery Health https://raycast.com/o1y/battery-health
BetterTouchTool https://raycast.com/dnnsmnstrr/bettertouchtool
Bing Search https://raycast.com/maver1ck/bing-search
Bing Wallpaper https://raycast.com/koinzhang/bing-wallpaper
Bitly URL Shortener https://raycast.com/blessanm86/bitly-url-shortener
Bluesky https://raycast.com/dharamkapila/bluesky
Brew https://raycast.com/nhojb/brew
Browser Bookmarks https://raycast.com/raycast/browser-bookmarks
Browser History https://raycast.com/crisboarna/browser-history
Browser Tabs https://raycast.com/koinzhang/browser-tabs
Change Case https://raycast.com/erics118/change-case
ChatGPT https://raycast.com/abielzulio/chatgpt
CleanShot X https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/cleanshotx
Clipboard Editor https://raycast.com/pomdtr/clipboard-editor
Clipboard Formatter https://raycast.com/joshtemple/clipboard-formatter
Close All Open Apps https://raycast.com/guide/close-apps
Coffee https://raycast.com/mooxl/coffee
Color Picker https://raycast.com/thomas/color-picker
CopyQ Clipboard Manager https://raycast.com/andrewcincotta/copyq-clipboard-manager
Day One https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/day-one
Downloads Manager https://raycast.com/thomas/downloads-manager
Drafts https://raycast.com/FlohGro/drafts
Dropover https://raycast.com/jag-k/dropover
DuckDuckGo Search https://raycast.com/tegola/duck-duck-go-search
Easy OCR https://raycast.com/Rafo94/easy-ocr
Emoji Search https://raycast.com/FezVrasta/emoji
Fantastical https://raycast.com/devahschaefers/fantastical
Flush DNS https://raycast.com/rasmusbe/flush-dns
Folder Search https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/folder-search
Font Awesome https://raycast.com/dutzi/font-awesome
GIF Search https://raycast.com/josephschmitt/gif-search
Google Drive https://raycast.com/vishaltelangre/google-drive
Google Gemini https://raycast.com/EvanZhouDev/raycast-gemini
Google Maps Search https://raycast.com/ratoru/google-maps-search
Google Search https://raycast.com/mblode/google-search
Google Workspace https://raycast.com/raycast/google-workspace
Hide All Apps https://raycast.com/peduarte/hide-all-apps
Iconify — Search Icons https://raycast.com/destiner/iconify
Image Modification https://raycast.com/HelloImSteven/sips
IMDb Search https://raycast.com/ryan/imdb
Installed Extensions https://raycast.com/pernielsentikaer/installed-extensions
Keyboard Maestro - List Macros https://raycast.com/eluce2/list-keyboard-maestro-macros
Kill Process https://raycast.com/rolandleth/kill-process
Link Cleaner https://raycast.com/MisakiCoca/link-cleaner
Lorem Ipsum https://raycast.com/AntonNiklasson/lorem-ipsum
MacUpdater https://raycast.com/kall/macupdater
Markdown Reference https://raycast.com/codedbyjordan/markdown-reference
Mastodon https://raycast.com/SevicheCC/mastodon
Mastodon Search https://raycast.com/daveverwer/mastodon-search
Meme Generator https://raycast.com/timoransky/meme-generator
Messages https://raycast.com/thomaslombart/messages
Microsoft Edge https://raycast.com/KartikKumarSahoo/microsoft-edge
Music https://raycast.com/fedevitaledev/music
My Daily Log https://raycast.com/frugoman/my-daily-log
MyIP https://raycast.com/Kang/myip
Obsidian https://raycast.com/KevinBatdorf/obsidian
Obsidian Smart Capture https://raycast.com/millin\_gabani/obsidian-smart-capture
omg.lol https://raycast.com/danpalmer/omg-lol
Open Folders https://raycast.com/timothy\_boye/open-folders
Open Link in Specific Browser https://raycast.com/koinzhang/open-link-in-specific-browser
Open With App https://raycast.com/fturcheti/open-with-app
Paste as Plain Text https://raycast.com/koinzhang/paste-as-plain-text
Quit Applications https://raycast.com/mackopes/quit-applications
Raindrop.io https://raycast.com/lardissone/raindrop-io
Random Password Generator https://raycast.com/textnav/random-password-generator
Reddit Search https://raycast.com/ewlcheng/reddit-search
Remove Paywall https://raycast.com/tegola/remove-paywall
Screenshot https://raycast.com/Aayush9029/screenshot
Script Commands Store – Find and manage your Raycast Script Commands https://raycast.com/tholanda/script-commands
Search HoudahSpot https://raycast.com/felixthehat/houdahspot-search
Speedtest https://raycast.com/tonka3000/speedtest
System Monitor https://raycast.com/hossammourad/raycast-system-monitor
Things https://raycast.com/loris/things
ToolBox https://raycast.com/Kang/toolbox
Type Snob https://raycast.com/sawyerh/type-snob
Unsplash https://raycast.com/eggsy/unsplash
Vivaldi https://raycast.com/crisboarna/vivaldi
Weather https://raycast.com/tonka3000/weather
Wi-Fi https://raycast.com/koinzhang/wi-fi
Wikipedia https://raycast.com/vimtor/wikipedia
Xecutor https://raycast.com/GastroGeek/xecutor
YouTube https://raycast.com/tonka3000/youtube
YouTube Companion https://raycast.com/sasivarnan/youtube-companion
YouTube Downloader https://raycast.com/vimtor/youtube-downloader
The Death Penalty

I've been to a place few people ever go. That place is death row. In my home state, death row is located in Central Prison in Raleigh. It has been more than 30 years since I was there. IN those days, guards like me who were at Central because we'd transported prisoners to the hospital there for treatment were sometimes pressed into service if they unit was short-staffed. The death row inmates were not under strict segregation from the rest of the population and when they had medical appointments or visits with their lawyers, they were escorted there, walking the halls right along with other inmates. You knew they were on death row because they wore bright red jumpsuits instead of the brown clothes other felons wore. While I was there, I saw two prisoners I recognized. They were a pair of brothers who killed two law enforcement officers during a traffic stop. The younger one later had his sentence commuted because he was a minor at the time of the crime.
Despite having a more intimate knowledge of the true nature of convicted murderers, I have never supported the death penalty. There are people who should never be let out of the prison, but the state should not be involved in killing people. I believe that for many reasons.
- The death penalty is not a deterrent.
- The death penalty costs many times what alternative punsihments cost.
- For every eight executions, someone is freed from death row after their innocence is established.
- Their is a long history of racial discrimination in applying the death peanlty.
- There is no way to rectify a wrongful execution.
- Asking medical staff and correctional officers to participate in executions is immoral.
Executed But Possibly Innocent | Death Penalty Information Center - It is now broadly accepted that the judicial review provided to death-penalty cases in the United States has been inadequate to prevent the execution of at least some prisoners who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Some cases with strong evidence of innocence are listed here.
Innocent Lives in the Balance - Equal Justice USAince 1973, at least 200 people have been freed after evidence revealed that they were sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit.1 That's more than one innocent person exonerated for every eight executions
On Jun 16, 1944: Fourteen-Year-Old George Stinney Executed in South Carolina - On June 16, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 90-pound Black 14-year-old boy, was executed in the electric chair in Columbia, South Carolina.
Wrongful Execution – TCADP - A documentary film, The Phantom, tells the story of how Texas executed Carlos DeLuna, a likely innocent person, in 1989. It is available to watch on Netflix. In addition to the case of Carlos DeLuna, there is strong evidence the State of Texas has executed several innocent people, including Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham, Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa), Larry Swearingen, and, most recently, Ivan Cantu, who was put to death on February 28, 2024.
Capital Punishment or Life Imprisonment? Some Cost Considerations | Office of Justice Programs - Florida has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately 6 times what it would cost to keep the person in prison for life
Prison officers traumatized by rate of executions in US death penalty states | Capital punishment | The Guardian - The relentless pursuit of “non-stop executions” by a rump of US death penalty states is exposing prison staff to extreme levels of psychological and physical stress, according to traumatized corrections officers who are appealing for help
DOES THE DEATH PENALTY DETER CRIME? - In 2004 in the USA, the average murder rate for states that used the death penalty was 5.71 per 100,000 of the population as against 4.02 per 100,000 in states that did not use it
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Celebrating the Decade
Age 50 / Age 60
This is my last week in my 50s. Looking back over the past 10 years, I am grateful for a great many things, lots of travel, three additional grandchildren, the conclusion of a career and the continued health of everyone in my family.
Where I Went
I spent my 50th birthday in Charleston, SC, a great city even if it was one of the coldest weekends they'd ever had. Wonder Woman hired a photography teacher as a guide. The three of us spent a day walking all over the old part of town with our cameras. I learned a lot and managed to take some photos I still enjoy looking at.
We took several other trips, flying to New York City, Colorado Springs, Anchorage, Santa Fe, Austin and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Wonder Woman started running competitively again when she turned 50 in 2017. We spent many weekends at races and places where she likes to train. She ran a lot in the Francis Marion National Forest in the South Carolina low country and in the Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina. We spent a lot of time in southwest Virginia, an area we fell in love with when he hiked through there on the Appalachian Trail.
Three New Babies
On my 50th birthday, I already had 10 grandchildren. I wasn't sure if any of our kids planned to have anymore. Our youngest daughter, Jennifer, surprised us first, and she had Tristen, a wee little man who vacillates between being earnest and very silly whenever it suits him. Anna really surprised us, since her only child was already nine before she decided to have another baby. She had James, a blue-eyed, blonde headed handful of a little boy who brings me nothing but joy. Finally, Elizabeth, who has three boys and also waited a long time before having another baby, announced to us that she was expecting. To everyone's delight, she had a little girl, our Evie, who already dances, plays the piano, does gymnastics and martial arts. She is amazing.
Work
I wrapped up a 27-year career as a civil servant in 2020. I'd spent seven years as a correctional officer in a state prison and twenty years working in IT for the county school system. I opted for the security and benefits (a pension and health insurance for life) over chasing higher paying jobs in the private sector. I spent a couple of restless years being retired and then went back to work in 2022 at the small private university where Wonder Woman Works. I'm only a few days away from retiring from there too, this time with a better plan to make use of the time.
Family
This was the decade when I suddenly realized that everyone was aging right along with me. All the big movie stars I'd enjoyed for most of my life are now relegated to playing old people in their films because, well, they all got old. Our kids are either in their 40s or getting ready to hit that milestone. Our two oldest grandchildren have graduated from high school. My ageless mother managed to not only walk across Scotland in her early 70s, she went to Spain and hiked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago a couple of years later. My Dad had a more difficult decade. He's now the caretaker for my step-mother, who has memory related issues and needs a lot of attention. My siblings continue to make me proud. One of my brothers, Todd, lives and works in Marin County, California giving nature tours at Pt. Reyes National Seashore. My other brother, Matt, a physician assistant for the State Department, did a tour in Athens with his family and is starting a tour in London this year. My only sister, Mitzi, a Methodist pastor, continues her ministry as the type of Christian who believes in loving all people, feeding the poor and helping the immigrant — you know, the stuff Jesus preached about.
I don't know what the next decade holds in store for Wonder Woman and I. In a few years we will be able to be retired together, and I can only imagine the places she will want to wander to. She's already talking about visiting the Alps and making the long flight to New Zealand. Her running career continues. She intends to run twelve 5Ks in one day just next month. We will probably become great-grandparents at some point in the next ten years. I'm going to keep writing and helping where I can in the struggle against fascism. Life is good, if challenging.
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Use Calibre to Back Up Your Kindle Books Before February 26
Amazon just announced that you have until February 26, 2025, to download your Kindle content. After that date, you will no longer be able to access the books you've paid for if you have a legacy device or a Kindle that has experienced wireless issues. The only way to load what you've paid for onto a device will be through wireless sync.
Thankfully, using the free ebook manager, Calibre, you can convert your Kindle content into formats readable on other ebook readers or into PDFs. You will be protected if Amazon ever removes books you've paid for. You do not need to download the Kindle app on your Mac to accomplish this.
Log in to your Amazon account. In the account section, select Content Library>Books. You'll have to download each title you want to back up as a separate files in azw3 format.
Download Calibre directly from the developer. To gain the ability to convert the books into other formats using Calibre, you will need to download a plugin from GitHub.. Make sure to install and set up the plugin before importing your books into Calibre. You will need the serial number from your Kindle to do this. You can get this information from the Amazon website or from the device itself.
For detailed instructions, see this article.
Researching Retirement

I have five working days left before I finish working out my notice at work. Hopefully, they will be uneventful. My boss, in a move I did not see coming, has given me the silent treatment since receiving my letter. I'm sorry he is being a weirdo, but it doesn't bother me too much. I've gotten some warm farewells from the people I've helped over the past couple of years, which is something I'll hold on to.
I've been putting a lot of thought into creating a workspace for myself where I can look out over my backyard, which abuts a wooded patch of wetlands. I can do some birdwatching from where I plan to set up and even go out on my deck with a cup of coffee when the weather permits. I have music, a good chair, a coffee pot and natural light.
As I have shared, I'll be doing a lot of writing. I have a PC that I'm going to set up as a home server so that I can experiment with some self-hosted services. I've been thinking of what kind of daily schedule I want to adhere to and even giving thought to a few meals I would like to cook for Wonder Woman.
How to Enjoy Retired Life: Creating a Retirement Routine
10 Tips to Create a Perfect Workspace at Home
Backyard Birding – World Sensorium / Conservancy
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Working in a Village

Most of my working life has been spent working in education, mostly for a K-12 school system in a large, mostly rural county but also for a small, private university. The goal of both organizations was conveying knowledge to build an educated citizenry. There's a certain amount of bureaucracy involved and by their very nature, bureaucracies sometimes lose sight of their intended purpose in their struggle to be self-perpetuating. Mostly, though, the people I've worked with have put the focus on doing what it takes to help students learn.
School systems more moving parts than you might imagine. The biggest group of employees is the faculty, the people who have to get up in front of the students and teach them. I've known so many good teachers. The one characteristic they all shared was a palpable sense of excitement when they were preparing to teach a lesson they thought their students would get into. A lot of thought goes into lesson planning. People usually teach subjects they enjoy. When they think they have a good strategy to really get their point across, they act like athletes before a big game. I always tried to be patient and listen to them share when I could tell they were fired up.
There are support staff in multiple categories required to operate a school system. When I went to work at my first school, my county was in the process of connecting to the Internet, so I got to usher man, many people into the information age in my IT role. I always made a point to get in tight with several workers at each school: the school secretary because they know everything, the lunch ladies because if you take care of them, they will take care of you and finally, the custodians, because I always needed their help a lot more than they needed mine. There are also other areas to support at the county level, like the huge maintenance department, a bus garage, HR and finance and all the administrators. There were many specialized systems I had to master for those different departments.
The school based professional staff also had various requirements. I worked with physical and occupational therapists to set up computers for students with special needs, including blind students, students in wheelchairs and other impairments. I helped the medical and mental health folks with securing sensitive information and configuring software for testing and medical devices. During the tension - filled weeks of high-stakes online testing, I had to be on standby in case any network issues affected connectivity.
Certain departments had the needs for software that pertained just to their roles. There are music programs for the band director and scoring programs for the coaches. We even had an AS-400, an IBM computer that contained all the district's financial data.
While my job in public school didn't often involve interacting with the students, my higher ed job did. As much as the "get off my lawn" types like to grouse about how horrible young people are these days, that has not been my experience. I've found that most students are polite, good listeners, and they just want to be able to use the tech they need to complete their assignments. Sure, some of the more inquisitive ones have tried mightily, and occasionally succeeded in getting around security safeguards, but then so have I, right?
I like knowing that a good chuck of my life has been in the service of helping people learn. I've done IT work in the medical field, banking and manufacturing too, and none of it was as rewarding as helping teachers and students. After spending the first decade of my adult life in the infantry and as a prison guard, being the helpful computer guy brought me a lot more joy. It really does take a village to produce well-rounded and educated citizens. I was glad to be a part of a good one.
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Metadata Lab - Exif Editor
Modern DSLR cameras and cell phones add extensive data to every photo they take. The information recorded includes camera settings like ISO speed, shutter speed, focal length, and other details. Including GPS location. After a photo is taken, and you've downloaded it to your computer, it's possible to add other information to its metadata, including a description, keywords and licensing/copyright information. Some of this information is more important to professional photographers than it is to regular people, but there are reasons why anyone might want to edit the details of a photo.
Some higher end photo management applications have metadata editing capabilities, but if you are piecing together your own workflow, the free app, Metadata Lab is a quick and easy way to add, remove or change information on any photo you have. The app is compatible with RAW, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and many other formats (including video/audio files). You can import photos from the Mac Photo's App into the Metadata Lab. Not only can you edit the EXIF data, you can also edit IPTC, PDF, PNG and QuickTime metadata.
Use Cases
- Correcting date and time data if it was incorrect on the camera
- Adding GPS data for later personal reference
- Removing GPS data for images shared with third parties or on the Internet
- Adding keywords for cataloging purposes
More information is available on the developer's website. You can download Metadata Lab on the App Store.
The Greensboro Massacre of 1979

I'm sharing tonight a repost of a piece I originally wrote last summer about the very real attack by the KKK and Nazis on leftist labor organizers in Greensboro, NC, resulting in five deaths and 10 wounded. Maybe you think that all the recent talk of Fascism and Nazis and white supremacy is a bit overblown. It is not. There are people organizing for change right now who have weathered gunfire and violence from what used to be the extreme right wing. Today, those people are closer to the mainstream.
In November 1979 I was a junior high student in Jacksonville, NC when I heard on the news about what the media initially called a shootout between the Ku Klux Klan, a group of Neo-Nazis and Communist labor organizers in Greensboro, three hours away. I remember being confused that the Klan and Nazis, who in my mind were relics of a dark but distant past, were still active and engaged in violence. And, I'd never even heard of Communists on American soil. It was a tumultuous time in America that month. It was when Iran took more than 50 Americans hostage. Inflation was over 10% and rising. President Carter was not the revered statesman he is today, but a beleaguered man presiding over a country that felt lost.
As it turns out, on that day in Greensboro, there was no shootout. Instead, there was a massacre planned with an active police informant that involved carloads of Klansmen and Nazis, who the police knew were on the way to what turned into a killing ground in a public housing project. With television cameras rolling but no law enforcement present, the forefathers of today's alt-right movement gunned down the labor organizers from the Worker's Viewpoint Organization, who were graduates from Duke and Harvard and in a couple of cases, medical doctors. Having previously faced down the Klan at a China Grove, NC rally. The left-wing activists underestimated the willingness of the fascists to engage in violence and paid for it with their lives. Aside from the five who were killed, 10 more were wounded.
The state and federal government both tried to convict the planners and shooters involved in the massacre. There were numerous eyewitnesses. The Klan was infiltrated with informants. There was ample videotape. In both trials, however, all white juries refused to convict those responsible for the violence and death on the streets of Greensboro. We aren't talking about 1960s Mississippi Burning times. One of these trials happened when Michael Jordan was in college in NC.
Two decades later, when I became involved in activism in North Carolina, some of the same people who had naively been involved in the Greensboro anti-Klan organizing were still committed to trying to do things like establish a death penalty moratorium, ensure affordable housing, ending the nuclear arms race, ensuring same-sex marriage and stopping the US led war in Iraq. My mentor was a Ph.D. economist from Temple University who had worked for 10 years as a lathe operator in a mill while trying to organize workers. His wife was a leading neurosurgeon who had taken a break from medical school to work on a textile mill to organize the people on the looms. Their lives had been upended by the events of 1979 and Kim, the wife, never quite recovered the fire in her belly to organize, Chip, her husband, remained actively working with low wage workers and community activists until his death in 2014.
I was horrified when the Unite the Right rally happened in Charlottesville in 2017. I know what these people are capable of doing. They've shown us. Hopefully, those who oppose them won't fall into the same trap as the anti-fascists did in 1979. This stuff isn't from the distant past. It's from the here and now.
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5 Great RSS Feeds for Good Reading Every Day

This is a special edition containing links to five of the best sources on the Internet to keep abreast of the latest trending topics and discover new writers. And then there is a bonus feed.
1 follow my favorite IndieWeb bloggers via RSS to stay abreast of what they are up to, for inspiration and education. I also have an RSS feed that's mostly for curated reposts of the best of the web each day. If you'd like to build a list like that, here are some great feeds to get started with. Keep these in a separate app or however you want to segregate them, but don't mix them up with all your other subscriptions or they will just get lost.
- Jason Kottke - one of the Internet's OG bloggers who posts regularly and who alwways seems to be finding the best stuff. - RSS Feed
- I've been reading NextDraft for well over a decade. Dave Pell says "I pluck the most fascinating news items of the day and then create a modern-day column which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight." -RSS Feed
- Feedle is a search engine for the IndieWeb where any search you fo can be turned into an RSS feed. Try it for any subject that interests you. In the meantime, subscribe to their curated feed of some of the best blog posts they've found -RSS Feed
- BearBlog is the home of two of my own online endeavors. It's also the home of many fine bloggers. Reading the most popular posts on the platform each day is a good use of your time and a good way to discover new writers - RSS Feed
- Murmel is a service that tracks the most shared stories on social media. The main feed covers a giant cross-section of the Fediverse, but you can subscribe to a personalized feed to see what the people you follow are sharing. - RSS Feed
- The last feed on the list is in way over its head. If you have a hard time sorting out where all the stuff I write about is being posted, you can subscribe to a single RSS feed and get it all out of one fire hose, including my weekly bookmarks and my updated /now page in addition to AppAddict, Living Out Loud and Linkage. - RSS Feed
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Librewolf for Security and Privacy
If you become more concerned with privacy and surveillance
regarding your online activities, moving to a more secure browser is a
definite step in the right direction, along with using a reputable VPN,
a privacy focused DNS setup and good ad and tracker blocking extensions.
The ultimate in privacy for most users is probably using the TOR browser
and network. That comes with a significant performance hit. If you are
looking for more privacy without the usability issues of TOR, Librewolf
is most likely your best option for a daily driver.
LibreWolf is a privacy-focused fork of Firefox. Its primary benefits include:
Tracking Protection
- Strict default settings protecting against trackers, ads and scripts
- uBlock Origin included by default
- Fingerprinting resistance, including protection against canvas, font, and WebGL fingerprinting.
- Encrypted SNI:preventing your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing which websites you visit.
Privacy
- No telemetry or data collection
- Privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo enabled by default, although you can change it to Kagi or the engine of your choice:
- Cookie AutoDelete to automatically purge tracking cookies after each browsing session
- HTTPS-Only Mode on by default
Security
- Blocks known malware sites through disconnect.me's list of over 5000 tracking and malicious domains
- WebRTC disabled by default to prevent IP address leakage
- Strict default settings for website permissions for your location, camera, and microphone
Open Source
- Open Source
- Ethical community members
- Removes sponsored content, distracting elements on the home page, and search suggestions
- Wide range of customization options
The most important element in your security setup is you. No amount of consumer technology can protect you as much as limiting what you share online. Making use of encryption technology to share highly sensitive data can be a necessary step if you are engaged in conduct that hostile actors could intercept.
The recommended way to install Librewolf is using Homebrew. You can download a DMG, but you will lose access to automatic updates.
brew install --cask librewolf
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I have been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum just once. It was in the 1990s. I took my children to Washington for the express purpose of having them visit. We had to go to the museum in the morning to get tickets to be able to tour it in the afternoon. We spent a little over two hours inside. I've always been interested in history and although I wouldn't say that I studied the holocaust, I'd read many books about World War Two. I knew how Hitler has enacted the Nuremberg Race Laws (modeled on Jim Crow laws from the US). I knew about Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass when the Nazis started a pogrom against Jewish businesses and synagogues in November of 1938. I knew about the death camps like Auschwitz.
The displays at the museum were haunting and memorable. The one that left the deepest impression was a pile of hundreds of leather shoes confiscated from Jews entering one of the camps. Many of the shoes were children's sizes. Most children were killed on the same day they arrived at the camps unless they happened to be twins, in which case their lives would be temporarily spared so Nazi doctors could experiment on them. You could smell the shoes in the exhibit, even from behind glass and even after 50 years of storage. They were a stark reminder of extinguished humanity.
With the rise of authoritarian government all over the world, including the far-right AfD in Germany itself, I think it would be good for any American to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum. See a civilized modern society went mad listening to a popular but insane little man who tooks a country of farmers and industrial workers and turned it into an extermination machine. Think about that the next time you a politician telling you that immigrants are animals and talking about them spoiling the blood of the nation.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
A visit to the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. - YouTube
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Tales from the Dark Ages

The recent stories of the resurgence of tuberculosis, first in Kansas and now in my home state of North Carolina, stirred up some long forgotten memories for me.
It seems strange to recount now, but when I went to work as a prison guard in the 1980s, the unit where I worked housed a category of offender known as a health law violator. These inmates were invariably chronic street alcoholics who had contracted tuberculosis and been non-compliant when it came to taking their medication. The state of North Carolina in all of its infinite wisdom decided at some point in the distant past that the best solution to this problem was to make it a crime. They would arrest these men and send them to the prison where I worked where they would receive treatment for TB. When they were no longer contagious, they would be released.
It was a grim situation, made even grimmer by the conditions of their confinement. The men were housed in a single cell segregation unit, the same type of housing used for prisoners convicted of disciplinary offenses. The health law violators only got to come out of their cells for an hour a day, always wearing a mask. They could mix with each other, but not with anyone else from the population. They were not allowed visitors. Eventually, the law was changed and by the time I left that kind of work in 1993, the Department of Correction had gotten out of the tuberculosis treatment business.
I don't know if anyone has figured out the logic behind the recently announced cuts to medical research by the fascist government of the United States. Not only are we getting a certified lunatic who admitted that a worm had eaten part of his brain as a cabinet secretary in charge of Health and Human services in Robert Kennedy, Jr., we are apparently just giving up on cancer. Not to worry because the US has also stopped AIDS eradication in Africa and assistance with other worldwide diseases because…I don't know. Fuck all those brown people. Right?
The tuberculosis comeback should scare people. You see, the prison where I worked in the 80s was originally built to house nothing but prisoners with tuberculosis, not health law violators like I dealt with, but run-of-the-mill bank robbers and cat burglars who just happened to also have TB. There were that many of them. It was only a mile away from a gigantic sanitorium the state operated to treat regular citizens who had the disease.
I remember a time, also back in the 80s when the US government also didn't give a damn about sick Americans, specifically sick gay Americans during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. St. Ronald Ray-gun couldn't even be bothered to say the name of the illness out loud. That's what we are headed back to now, except the American fascists are uncaring about all the non-billionaires. They plan to let idiots of all stripes forego vaccinations. In the face of a pandemic, no one will have to take any precautions against spreading disease. I know this sounds like the rantings of a crazy person, and two months ago, you would have been right if you thought that. Now, I am right. We are screwed, and eggs are still expensive.
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Applite Updated with New Features
Installing software using the package manager, Homebrew, makes it
much easier to update than downloading installation files manually. It
isn't necessarily difficult to find the commands to download apps, but
it does require a certain amount of searching around. The free and
open-source utility, Applite, provides an App Store like interface for
Homebrew, allowing you to browse what is available through a GUI.
Anything you download through Applite can also be updated through the
same interface.
When you install Applite, it will offer to install Homebrew . If you don't have it installed already, you'll want to do that. Otherwise, just choose the option to use your currently installed version, which will be detected.
Every application in the Homebrew Catalog is available through Applite. When you launch an app downloaded with Applite, the built-in Mac security apps, Gatekeeper and Xprotect will examine it to make sure it is safe to run. Most of the apps in the Homebrew catalog are notarized, but not all of them are sandboxed, meaning that some may run with elevated privileges. Be careful when downloading applications that few others have downloaded. Not all apps available through Homebrew are FOSS. Some are trialware of commercial products.
The following categories of apps are available along with info on some of the apps I have tested:
- Browsers like Edge and Vivaldi
- Communication
- Productivity - Raycast, Obsidian,Better Touch Tool, Hazel, Cleanshot X, Unclutter
- Office Tools
- Menu Bar - Stats, BarTender
- Utilities - ImageOptim, Downie, Upscayl, Permute
- Maintenance - AppCleaner. PearCleaner, Onyx, Daisy Disk
- Creative Tools
- Media - IINA
- Developer Tools
- IDE Tools
- Terminals
- Virtualization
- Gaming
- VPN
- Password Managers
Punching Nazis

Have you ever been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC? Better yet, have you traveled to Europe and visited the sites of former Nazi concentration camps like Dachau or Auschwitz? Did your grandfather or great-grandfather serve in Work War 2? Even if you can't answer any of those questions in the affirmative, do you simply have a gut level understanding that Nazis and their ideology are among the most despicable things to ever exist?
My Grandmother lost her younger brother to Nazi gunfire in Italy. I have proudly organized with survivors of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre in North Carolina where Nazis and Klansmen gunned down community activists marching through a public housing project.
I am glad to support and encourage anyone who is antifascist. If you list Nazi-punching as one of your hobbies on social media, I am sending you a friend request. If actually get to punch a Nazi and I can get your address, I am sending you a fan letter. Celebrate these heroes whenever you get the chance!
Armed Nazis Flee as Local Heroes Burn Their Flags
Antifa Tracked Down and Knocked Out a Neo-Nazi Using Social Media | New York Post - YouTube
Punching Nazis Totally Works | Defiant | Medium
The 'punch a Nazi' meme: what are the ethics of punching Nazis? | Science | The Guardian
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Useless Things - Hiking Edition. The little known national scenic trail, the Nuesiok, located in the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina floods frequently and the park service tries to help, kind of.
Use KIWIX to Access Wikipedia and Other Resources Offline
You should use this free and open-source tool to secure a personal
copy of Wikipedia and other resource information valuable to you. KIWIX believes that access to knowledge
is a fundamental right. That’s why they’re dedicated to providing free
and open access to it for everyone, everywhere.
KIWIX enables you to have the whole of Wikipedia (and many other websites like TED talks, Stack Exchange, Gutenberg Project library, WikiHow, Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp, YouTube channels) Data downloaded on a Mac can be transferred to mobile devices.
The source code for the Mac and iOS versions is on GitHub.
You may have seen the recent stories about attacks on Wikipedia. Certain parties have:
- Discouraged people from donating
- Tried to buy it
- Promised to dox and harass editors who have different views than the targeting organization
Some of these same parties have been responsible for the removal of publicly funded databases from government websites. If you are concerned about censorship or data altered to fit a certain narrative, download KIWIX to avoid issues. It is still currently available on Mac App Store..
The most reliable way to get the Wikipedia data is to use a Mac to download the small peer-to-peer seed file for the large non-indexed ZIM file you want (not the pre-indexed package for Windows) from http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Content\_in\_all\_languages, then use a peer-to-peer client (such as Folx) to download the actual ZIM data file to your computer. You can then transfer the ZIM file to your iOS device using iTunes/Apple Music File Sharing.
Buy Less Stuff, Go More Places

During my year-long project to see if it was possible to manufacture happiness, one of the exercises I undertook was to make a list of my own rules to live by](https://louplummer.lol/my-rules-for-me/). One of those rules was Buy Less Stuff, Go More Places.
Studies have strongly suggested that memories are more difficult to form when your surroundings don't change. I made the same 30-mile drive to work for twenty years, and the hour and half it took out of my life each day was essentially lost time. I listened to plenty of good books and podcasts in those drives, but the landscape might as well have been a blank slate. On our recent trip to Florida for the Miami Marathon, every mile was fascinating, even if it was through a typical neighborhood. The architecture and landscaping was so different from what I am used to.
This is a hard rule to follow when you have disposable income because you're old and have paid off your bills. Yes, we go plenty of places, but the Amazon delivery mobile has us programmed into their GPS. A couple of points though - We do not have an expensive home, nor do we want one. If anything, we want simpler. I also drive an old, old car. It's not a classic, or anything close to it. It is just ancient. Those two facts alone save us a few thousand dollars a month. This year, we may not take a vacation that includes airfare. We will probably opt for some place in the Appalachian Mountains instead - one of my favorite places on earth. Among our "fly to" vacations, I've prepared heavily for Northern Ireland and Santa Fe. I'm not sure what prevented me from taking full advantage of NYC and Colorado Springs. I had a good time in both places but I left a lot on the table.
The places I like to go to are more often the places we can drive to - or places we can park and hike to. Some touristy sites are fun to visit, but I enjoy exploring a new patch of woods a lot too. Whatever I do, I want to do it with Wonder Woman. Sometimes I feel like she has a stronger sense of adventure, but I think we're actually evenly matched. Her personality is such that she is usually happier to let me pick out the next adventure (I'm not fooling myself, either. I read about why that is true in a book). When I'm feeling tired, and she expresses a desire to do something, it just seems odd, out of the ordinary. It's just that I feel tired more frequently than she does.
I do sometimes feel guilty for buying things. A decluttering spree made me less inclined to buy several types of items: clothes, pots and pans, used books, random personal care stuff. I try to be mindful about what I buy lately. I ask myself if an item will help me feel happier. Will it help me reach a goal? What triggered my desire for it?
Anyway, I think I need to let go of some of the guilt, as long as I am willing to be a good steward of our the money we have and as long as I would always rather go somewhere new, than go shopping for something flashy. I don't need flashy.
I love to track things. I have an app to bookmark places. In the past 10 years, we have visited 76 parks, stayed in 44 hotels/VRBO, visited 28 coffee shops, 14 book stores and eaten in 352 restaurants. I want to at least match that in the next 10 years!
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I took this photo out the window of a restaurant while eating dinner near (not with) David Sedaris who has a vacation home nearby. In case you ever make it to Atlantic Beach, NC, check out Amos Mosquitos for fresh caught local seafood.
Remembering Bad Presidents

In my time on planet Earth, I have lived through of during the administration of 11 presidents. They all has faults, but, excluding the current White House resident, two of them were exceptionally bad people and presidents. I am referring, of course to Richard Nixon who not only ran a criminal conspiracy from the oval office to cover up the Watergate crimes, he also less famously prolonged the Vietnam war by sabotaging peace negotiations between the Johnson Administration and North Vietnam. The other spectacular failure was George W. Bush who lied the Ameican people into a two-trillion dollar failure of a war. If that weren't bad enough, he also was running the country when the world financial system almost collapsed due to his negligence, causing the worst economic conditions in the US since the Great Depression.
Isn't it odd then, that the current criminal fascist at the head of the US government does something almost every day as bad as the worst of Nixon and Bush? I mean, theguy already has 34 felony convictions. He owes $84 million to a woman he sexually assaulted and then defamed. He is openly racist and has been recorded on video bragging about grabbing women "by the pussy."
Just for the lolz, here is what we used to consider bad presidenting.
Nixon
Worst Presidents: Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Articles by Jonathan Rauch: Nixon: 20th Century's Worst President
W. Bush
The 7 worst moments of George W. Bush’s presidency - The Washington Post
George W. Bush was worse than you remember
George W. Bush Was a Disaster — Only Trump Looks Worse By Comparison - FPIF
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Why Do People Get Mad About Things That Are None of Their Business?
When you meet someone named William, and they tell you they prefer to be called Bill, almost all of us do the one rational and sane thing that the situation calls for. We call them Bill. If their name is William, and they ask to be called Chip, all the non-crazy people in their circle call them Chip. Not only is it basic human decency to call people what they want to be called, it's also the path of the least resistance. It causes exactly zero problems, and it actually prevents conflicts that would be caused by some idiot's stupid obstinacy in insisting that the only rational name to call anyone is the name on their birth certificate. It's no one else's business why any of us choose to be called by our preferred name. Whatever the reason is for your choice or mine, it is good enough.
My middle name happens to be Kimbal. When you shorten it, as most people did when that was the name I went by, it's Kim. From birth to the first couple of years of school, Kim is the name I used when introducing myself. It's what I wrote on my first and second grade spelling tests, right there at the top on the line labeled "Name". Because kids are assholes, some of them decided that my name didn't conform to the gender norms they thought were acceptable, In other words, they thought Kim was a girl's name. Since I am not a girl and have never identified as a girl and because I had that traditional social conditioning that anything that challenges one's manliness is bad, even if for a six-year-old, I was greatly offended. It made me mad enough to cry, which made me even more mad. Since I was then a pissed off, crying, immature little boy-child with poor coping skills, my next step was usually to make the socially unacceptable choice of attempting to beat someone's ass. That was frowned on, and I got lectured on how I should just ignore mean people. Well, that was bullshit then and it is bullshit now.
I eventually caved to pressure, tried a few other names and ended up going by Lou, which is a perfectly fine name, I suppose, but not the one that I was used to.
Now, you probably know where I am going with this. Most people who are going to read this most likely don't have an issue calling people what they want to be called. If they wish to be called Mary, even though the name on their birth certificate is William, most people who read the rants of this particular progressive old white guy, are cool enough to call that person Mary. If Mary asks, quite naturally that you say she and her when you refer to her, then the people I like, are going to say OK, and do exactly that. They do it because they aren't crazy and they aren't assholes. They have manners and basic human decency. They are not needlessly antagonistic, and they would rather not make another human being feel bad for absolutely no reason. Good for them!
The only reason to refuse to call someone by their preferred name, gender, and pronouns is that you are morally deficient. You are a flawed human being with untreated personality issues. You are probably cruel in other ways that make sense to no one apart from your own twisted self. You may know and be friends with some other weirdos who share your flaws, but that doesn't make any of you right. Not only that, but you are most likely still mad at six-year-old me who beat your ass back in 1971 — because you deserved it then, just like you deserve it now.
Please send this, anonymously if you have to, to anyone in your life who needs to read it.
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Geofency - Location Based Time Tracking
I have used various location tracking apps over the years. Most of the ones I've tried have had issues. Either the company behind them folded or the apps had poor privacy policies or were strictly for iOS and drained my battery faster than I liked. These apps are often subscription-based. Google will gladly track your location for free using your device if you let them, but what sane person wants Google of all companies knowing their every move?
The one app that consistently delivers added features, accuracy, and unsurpassed privacy is Geofency by developer Karl Heinz Herbel. It is a universal app for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. I use my iPhone as the default for tracking my location and use the Mac version to pull reports and see my data. Geofency is currently at version 9 and has been in the app store for 12 years. Geofency does not do route tracking, so look elsewhere if that's what you need. Instead, it tracks the amount of time you spend at the locations you visit. I used it for years when I worked in a rural county, traveling between schools. When I needed to complete my expense report, I could pull all my data from Geofency as well as for my time card. If, for some reason, it fails to accurately record a visit (rarely) you can manually edit the data.
It is accurate enough that today I use it to determine which buildings on the campus of the university where I work I have visited during the current reporting period. I am able to add notes to any visit to a particular building for later reference. For visits to commercial locations, Geofency connects to Apple Maps to pull phone, address and website data. I can automatically export visits to any location to any calendar. The app will even generate a CSV time sheet for any time period I specify for any location. I can customize the locations by renaming them or resizing the spatial radius Geofency recognizes, helpful for separate locations near one another.
None of your Geofency data is collected by the developer. It all lives in your iCloud account only.
The iOS app features live activities and widgets. I would gladly pay a higher price for this app I have now used for over a decade, but it is still only $4.99 as a one-time purchase in. the App Store.
Another photo from the now closed North Carolina Aviary - A Victoria Crowned Pigeon with its vibrant blue plumage, deep red eyes, and a dramatic crest of lacy, white-tipped feathers #bird
This Week's Bookmarks - Buffy Returns, $1 Million Puzzle, Using Signal, Attending Protests, Night Experiences, Chatbot Limits, More Movies

Sarah Michelle [[Gellar]] Says Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Return Is for the Fans - The Slayer herself revealed that a Buffy revival has been in the works for a while ahead of this week's announcement.
Officials Are Offering $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decode This Ancient Script | Smithsonian - The enigmatic Indus Valley civilization left behind a script that today's historians haven't yet deciphered. While amateur theories abound, scholars are increasingly relying on computer science to crack the code
How to: Use Signal - Signal is a free and open-source application for Android, iOS, and desktop that employs end-to-end encryption ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] to keep communications safe.
Attending a Protest - Protecting your electronic devices and digital assets ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] before, during, and after a protest is vital to keeping yourself and your information safe, as well as getting your message out.
Five extraordinary night-time experiences around the world - From fiery festivals to nature's most dazzling "sky-dance", interest in the night skies is booming, with "noctourism" poised to be a major travel trend in 2025.
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations | Quanta Magazine - Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities.
AMC Theaters Stubs-A List Increases to Four Movies a Week - Film fanatics are getting a greater value for their money, too. They'll receive an additional weekly reservation, allowing them to see up to four movies instead of the current allotment of three per week.
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When he was tiny like this, my grandson was very attached to his Mom, so it was rare for him to voluntarily leave her like he did in this photo when his curiosity led him to walk with me across this field. He eventually got tired and simply sat down on the grass and had to be carried home.
Telling Stories

My Dad can be aggravating every so often. He's conservative and opinionated and not a little arrogant. He got religion about thirty years ago and that made it worse. Despite all of that, he is as entertaining as anyone I have ever known for one reason. He is a supremely skilled and captivating storyteller. Granted, most of the stories are about him, but he's lived an interesting life, and he weaves all sorts of different elements into his tales. Unlike many combat veterans, he loves to talk about his time at war. It's rarely about the ugly parts. Usually, he has funny stories about different men in his unit during his first tour in Vietnam or men he flew with during his second tour.
One of my favorite stories is the one about one of his young soldiers who Dad said was the happiest American in Vietnam. Dad was a second lieutenant in charge of a platoon on armored cavalry soldiers. He knew this private stateside, before they deployed because the kid had gone through training at Ft. Know while Dad was also stationed there. He's found the private crying one day outside the barracks and with his best fatherly attitude (he was 21 at the time), asked the kid "What's the matter son?"
"Sir," the young man answered, "My girlfriend, she's going to have a baby." My Dad assured him that he could arrange leave for him to go home and "make things right." "But sir, you don't understand. Her Mom."
Dad asked,"What about her Mom, son"
"Sir, she's pregnant too."
Dad said it took a few seconds for the situation to become clear. Yes, the answer is yes. This young draftee from Nowheresville, Oklahoma had gotten both his girlfriend and her mother in the family way at the same time and then left for the Army. So, yeah, when he ended up in the jungles of Vietnam fighting a way, he was relieved that he wasn't back home being murdered by two irate women.
Telling stories runs in the family, though. My grandfather never presented himself as a military man, although he had been on active duty before Pearl Harbor and didn't get discharged until 1946. His World War Two stories were mainly about geography and culture. The National Guard unit he joined during the depression had been activated and sent to Trinidad in the later 30s. He pronounced it Trinny-dad. There was, of course, no combat there, but he played a lot of baseball. He'd been all over the states and spent time in England before landing in mainland Europe where he proclaimed to he's gone all the way across France and Germany until he "hugged necks with the Russians at the Elbe River." Some of his stories were harrowing in their own way. His unit liberated a German POW camp holding Russian prisoners. Before running from the approaching US Army, the Nazis turned loose their Alsatian dogs on their prisoners in a final spurt of brutality. The Russians, rather than scrambling in fear, instead caught the dogs and promptly ate them. I heard that story many times and thinking about it today reinforces the "war is hell" ethos like no other I've ever heard personally.
Some of my stories also take an ironic turn like that. I was in the military during the Cold War, so I thankfully, I have no combat tales. My personal war stories are from working manhunts after prison escapes. The most surreal moment from that period was when I was sent to escort a bloodhound handler into a patch of woods, where minutes before three prisoners who'd managed to penetrate a fence fled under gunfire. Two of the prisoners were being held at the prison where I worked even though they hadn't been convicted yet. They'd escaped from jail and were being held at my unit because they were a security risk. Yeah, no shit. Since they were not yet convicted felons, the "shoot on sight" law that is supposed to keep criminals from climbing fences technically did not apply to them. Thus, my captain as he pushed me into the woods to look for then cautioned me to "Try not to shoot them." Read the whole story.
Those stories are memorable, but they aren't my favorites. I loved to listen to my grandmother's tales of cooking for her six brothers on a wood stove, trying in vain to quell their appetites after they'd spent the days plowing with mules. I also love to hear my mother recount her early hardscrabble life living in an old farmhouse without running water or adequate heat where sometimes the hot water bottle she took to bed with her would fall to the floor where she'd find it frozen in the morning when she crawled from under the quilts.
It's not just the older generation that can spin a story. My kids love to elaborate on the things they did to exasperate me when they were growing up. My oldest daughter, who I dearly love, has and has always had a slightly sharp tongue. She used it one too many times on a trip home from a friends' lake house one day back in the 90s and I turned around in the car to pop her on the leg as a warning, except I didn't. I tagged her brother, who, while not an angel, was an innocent bystander in this case. "Dad, you got me!" was his indignant response. I was doubly furious. When we finally got home, my daughter, sensing that she had pushed things too far, climbed over the other children in the back seat and took off running as fast as she could with me chasing her. Lucky for both of us, I didn't catch her. Not funny at the time but hilarious to hear then tell it now.
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A winter sunset over Badin Lake in the heart of the Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina.
I Hate PDFs, Here Are Some Tips

First off, just let me say I hate PDFs in the workplace because even in 2025, few people understand all the ins and outs of working with them. All they know is that the boss needs to buy them or IT needs to give them some expensive software, preferably top of the line Adobe software, so they can do what they want with a single damn document they got from some seminar.
If you occasionally work with documents saved as PDFs, you can probably avoid purchasing, or worse, subscribing to expensive services to create, join, split, annotate and convert files. The key word is occasionally. If your everyday workflow involves working with PDFs all day, you need to go ahead and invest in the tools you need.
Both Macs and PCs can create PDF files from just about any file you can print. Where folks run into trouble is when they get a PDF file created by someone else, and they want to edit it as if it were a Word document. It is not. When you look at a PDF, you are essentially looking at a picture of a document rather than an original. Still, depending on your pain point, there are free tools you can use to make some modifications to PDFs.
There are also free tools to do OCR (object character recognition) on PDF files so that you can search the text in them for keywords. Not every PDF has a searchable layer. It can be created if it doesn't exist, but it isn't always there by default.
One last bomb blast from your IT guy - do not come at me with some 1GB 800-page PDF full of tiny text and full color pictures and complain about anything because you are asking for trouble if you expect to work with files like that. You just are.
PDFgear - Free PDF Editor Software & Online tools
Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac - Apple Support
How To Edit a PDF on Mac—Three Fast and Free Ways | Smallpdf
PDF online - FREE | Adobe Acrobat
PDF OCR - Recognize text - easily, online, free - PDF24
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I’ve been looking at this giant oak since I was a kid when it was in front of the local newspaper. After the paper moved, the area became a notorious red-light district patrolled by civilian police and Army MPs. Today, the tree is on the grounds of the Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum.
Acorn Image Editor Provides Great Value
Through the years, I've used multiple versions of Adobe Photoshop,
Pixelmator add even GIMP for layered image editing and graphic design.
The most user-friendly yet powerful app I've ever used in that category
is Acorn, by the developers at Flying Meat, Inc. For less than $20 you
get a Photoshop compatible application, either from the developer's website
or the App
Store.The feature set is long and varied, but the interface isn't
overly complicated, and you don't need to buy an 800-page book to
explain the ins and outs of using it. A two-time Apple award winner,
it's a one-time purchase of $19.99, and you get access to extensive
online documentation, a user forum and tech support. The current version
is a universal binary compatible with macOS 14 and 15, but earlier
versions can still be downloaded.
New Features in Latest Version
- AI subject selection
- Live text tool
- Data-driven graphics
- On canvas ruler
- JPEG-XL support
- Look up tables (LUTs)
- Super resolution (upscaling)
- Extensive export support
- Apple shortcut support
Basic Use Cases
- Design logos and custom typography by adding text to paths or shapes.
- Remove backgrounds using Magic Wand and Instant Alpha Eraser.
- Combine images to create collages and layouts.
- Retouch images with Clone, Dodge, and Burn.
- Adjust contrast, highlights, and shadows with Levels and Curves.
- Export professionally with customizable color profiles, file formats, and precise size control.
Extended Feature Set
- Layer capabilities
- Filters, effects and styles
- Basic and custom brushes (including Adobe imports)
- Magic Wand shapes
- Vector support
- Supports multiple file types
If you only need basic features, like image conversion, compression and resizing, there are programs with smaller feature sets to accomplish those tasks. If. However, you want something full-featured with batch processing capabilities (using Automator support), Acorn is a good tool to have.
Limited Purpose Tools
I captured this snap of a Blue Crowned Hanging Parrot, one of the smallest, at our state aviary before it closed a few years back. It was one of my favorite places in the world
Get Ready for More

If you aren't a regular reader of Linkage, the daily collection of interesting places to visit on the Internet, you really should be. Earlier tonight i shared the news that I've decided to stop working at the university where I've been full time since 2022. My new ambition is to be able to devote my time to writing in a way I never have been able to before. Writing is what brings me the most joy these days but I have had to cram it into a life with a full time job, family time that I treasure and trying to be a supportive husband to Wonder Woman. I've always enjoyed helping people with technology issues, so my job wasn't unenjoyable, but like any workplace, sometimes personalities and politics get in the way of the mission. Well, not any more, not for me. My last day in my 50s will be my last day as an employee. My first day of the final retirement is going to be my 60th birthday.
This is the real culmination of a dream I've had for a while. There are so many things in my life that have taken a back seat. I'll have time to cook again. I won't have to go for walks in the coldest hour of the day. I can spend evenings doing things with Wonder Woman as opposed to doing things near her.
My vision for writing is to be able to spend more time developing ideas, spending some time mind mapping or outlining what I want to write about. I may even start proofreading before I publish! Usually my editing is of the oh, shit variety, after I spot a mistake or three on a live blog post. I get email from developers fairly regularly asking me to consider reviewing their apps and now I will have time to do more of that. It would really make me happy to be able to lend a hand to someone who comes up with a great idea to get more attention for their work. I don't have the stress or pressure faced by commercial journalists.
For this blog, where tech takes a back seat and I tend to write more autobiographical prose along with social commentary, nothing will change about the format or direction. I'll just be able to develop some ideas more fully. It is a precarious moment in time. Documenting how we get through these next four years is important. I want to be a part of a support network of progressive voices who advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the face of an assault on vulnerable people. Activists absolutely need to be in the streets, but no one should discount building communities online. If the right wing's Internet presence is a problem for the left, the same can be true in reverse. Keeping people engaged and involved and ready to vote isn't a given. I'm not planning to become a pundit. I just want to be the same outspoken citizen I have tried to be since conservatism turned so poisonous.
I am excited and happy. Life is awesome.
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Vivaldi, My Favorite Browser Just Got Some Updates
I switched to using Vivaldi late last year after being all in on Microsoft Edge because of work. I am trying to leave as many big tech companies behind as possible, and I grew tired of having AI shoved in my face all day. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser designed for the technically proficient, who form the core of its 3.1 million user base.
Through the years I've used Netscape, Internet Explorer, Camino, Safari, Chrome and Edge. None of them ever provided the customization options that Vivaldi does. The ability to group tabs and save them as browsing sessions is a real game changer. The iOS version is great too and getting to my bookmarks, tabs and history works well between platforms. Version 7.1 was released recently and these are some of the new features.
Bring Your Tabs Along
If the thought of abandoning the open tabs in your current browser gives you anxiety, Vivaldi now has you covered. It can import them all so you can get right back to doing what you were doing without having to set things up again.
Speed Dials
Vivaldi has a mechanism for setting up link collections called Speed Dials. You can reach your Speed Dials right from the new tab page. I have several, including one with the websites I use for posting to my blog and another for research. The process for adding sites to them has been redesigned and is no easier than ever to manage.
Seamless Tab Sharing
If, like me, you use your browser on multiple devices, four in my case, the ability to send tabs to my phone, iPad or work computer is easier than ever. I can continue to read or research anything without using third-party software or cumbersome workarounds.
New Default Search Engines
Vivaldi doesn’t track you, profile you, or sell your data. It's monetized by defaulting to one of three search engines, although you are free to use anything you want. Vivaldi features Startpage, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Qwant. It's built in tracker blocking and the availability of ad blockers routinely give me a score of 99 to 100 on sites that grade privacy.
Weather Widget
There is a new custom weather widget for Vivaldi's new tab page, which it calls a dashboard. The dashboard already has widgets to display your email inbox, top stories from your choice of RSS feeds, your calendar and more.
Dashboard Customization
You can now customize the look of your dashboard with themes ranging from minimalist styles to bold and colorful. The page background is adjustable to fit your style, and you can color your widgets to match the overall them you've chosen for the browser as a whole.
Vivaldi, My Favorite Browser Just Got Some Updates
I switched to using Vivaldi late last year after being all in on Microsoft Edge because of work. I am trying to leave as many big tech companies behind as possible, and I grew tired of having AI shoved in my face all day. Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser designed for the technically proficient, who form the core of its 3.1 million user base.
Through the years I've used Netscape, Internet Explorer, Camino, Safari, Chrome and Edge. None of them ever provided the customization options that Vivaldi does. The ability to group tabs and save them as browsing sessions is a real game changer. The iOS version is great too and getting to my bookmarks, tabs and history works well between platforms. Version 7.1 was released recently and these are some of the new features.
Bring Your Tabs Along
If the thought of abandoning the open tabs in your current browser gives you anxiety, Vivaldi now has you covered. It can import them all so you can get right back to doing what you were doing without having to set things up again.
Speed Dials
Vivaldi has a mechanism for setting up link collections called Speed Dials. You can reach your Speed Dials right from the new tab page. I have several, including one with the websites I use for posting to my blog and another for research. The process for adding sites to them has been redesigned and is no easier than ever to manage.
Seamless Tab Sharing
If, like me, you use your browser on multiple devices, four in my case, the ability to send tabs to my phone, iPad or work computer is easier than ever. I can continue to read or research anything without using third-party software or cumbersome workarounds.
New Default Search Engines
Vivaldi doesn’t track you, profile you, or sell your data. It's monetized by defaulting to one of three search engines, although you are free to use anything you want. Vivaldi features Startpage, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Qwant. It's built in tracker blocking and the availability of ad blockers routinely give me a score of 99 to 100 on sites that grade privacy.
Weather Widget
There is a new custom weather widget for Vivaldi's new tab page, which it calls a dashboard. The dashboard already has widgets to display your email inbox, top stories from your choice of RSS feeds, your calendar and more.
Dashboard Customization
You can now customize the look of your dashboard with themes ranging from minimalist styles to bold and colorful. The page background is adjustable to fit your style, and you can color your widgets to match the overall them you've chosen for the browser as a whole.
Quitting But Still a Winner
I did something today I've only done a couple of times in the 21st century. I quit my job. Technically, leaving my previous job wasn't quitting. It was retiring. I spent 27 years working for the state of NC before sailing off into the sunset. I ended up not liking my first shot at retirement, but I think this time will be different. For the past two years I've been an end user support specialist at a private university in the town where I live. The students and 99% of the faculty were great to work with. The atmosphere in tech has really changed though. A lot of time and energy is spent on what is essentially security theater. While there is information the law requires an IT department do everything in its power to protect, there are also lots of restrictions placed on folks that are there purely for show and don't do a damn thing to make data more secure. It makes me crazy. So I turned in my notice. My last day at work will also be my last day in my 50s. My 60th birthday will be the first day of my second retirement.
To celebrate my impending freedom, I found a few good stories about people leaving jobs to share with you.
Quitting Stories- Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com
The CRAZIEST Job Quitting Stories You Will Ever Hear - Don’t Try These Yourself - YouTube
30 Hilarious Ways People Quit Their Jobs
4 of the wildest quitting stories we've ever heard
‘I’m outta here': Employees Share Stories About Quitting on the First Day - FAIL Blog - Funny Fails
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Let's Talk About Corporate Hypocrisy

When the Republican's in the NC legislature pushed through the nation's first bathroom bill in 2016, other states banned travel there, artists like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts, major corporations canceled plans to open offices and the NCAA pulled the college basketball Final Four tournament. By the time the bill was rescinded, North Carolina lost billions of dollars in revenue as the nation punished it for enacting a spiteful and hate-filled law. Times have changed. Today the president of the NCAA issued a fawning statement with a positive spin on Trump's executive order banning trans athletes. In eight years time, the NCAA lost what little moral compass it ever had.
To give this exploitive and hypocritical organization, tonight I'll feature a few other less than respectable organizations.
2016
NCAA pulls 7 championship events out of North Carolina - ESPN
2025
Disney is once again giving money to anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans who passed the "Don't Say Gay" law | Salon.com - the recipients include Republicans who supported the law that banned discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in public schools through third grade, even though the company, under pressure from its employees, previously opposed the measure, officially called the Parental Rights in Education bill.
Facebook settles a federal lawsuit over allegations it favored foreign job applicants : NPR - This is the same company that just crawled into bed with MAGA and its America First Agenda.
Dove's 'Real Beauty' campaign: Hypocritical? | The Week - After earning praise for featuring women who were not professional models in an ad campaign, Dove decided to solicit candidates with this pitch - "Beautiful arms and legs and face... naturally fit, not too curvy or athletic!" the ad read. "Beautiful hair & skin is a must!!!"
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Located right off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC, Cone Manor, the former home of one of NC’s textile barons, overlooks the frozen surface of Bass Lake down below.
Affirmations - IndieWeb Carnival for February 2025

This month, the topic for those participating in the monthly IndieWeb Carnival is "affirmations." I've long enjoyed reading poetry and collecting quotes. I will stop whatever I am doing if I hear a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Winston Churchill, two of the greatest speakers to ever be recorded. I am inordinately fond of the power of language. Several years ago, I decided to see if it was possible to achieve happiness through adopting positive behaviors. Among the many things I tried over the course of the year-long experiment was internalizing affirmations. I didn't use an app for it or search through my quotes collection. Instead, I looked at the parts of my life that caused me the most stress. Then, I flipped that by determining what my favorite things were about myself.
Affirmations for Stress
The year I undertook this project was one of changes. After 15 years of working in elementary and middle schools supporting teachers and students using Apple computers, I switched to working in high schools where everything was Windows-based. I transitioned from using computers and software with which I was intimately familiar, to systems I loathed and had done my best to avoid for a long time. Not only that, I was faced with learning the ins and outs of the faculty and staff at four giant campuses. I went from a life on cruise control to one where the stress level was ramped up by the demands of high-stakes online testing, students striving for college admissions and ramped up security concerns.
Since I was trying everything in my power to make that year the best I could, I used two affirmations, which I wrote out by hand in a notebook every morning.
- I react calmly to stressful situations
- I am intelligent and resourceful. I find solutions to problems. I am not defeated by them.
I repeated those affirmations to myself before I got out of my car in the mornings as work and I had post-it notes taped to my laptop as constant reminders. I was doing a lot of other positive things that year, meditating, walking several miles a day, striving for eight hours of sleep a night, eating healthy. Combining all of those things did, in fact, keep the stress level down. Despite my misgivings, I finished out my career truly enjoying the time I spent working with older students and adapting to a whole new workflow.
Having a Purpose
The other word game i played with myself, not only that one year but right until this very day was taking the time to determine my purpose. What is it I'm on earth to do? It's a hallmark of my personality to like the things I like as much as I possibly can. I am not one to dip my toe into the pool. I do a cannonball. Because I am usually convinced that my latest passion is the best thing ever, I naturally try to convince other people to take part. When I started rescuing parrots, I had two aviaries built at my house within a year. I set up anyone who was interested with a bird of their own and helped them outfit a habitat and choose the right food. When I was into cycling, my greatest joy was helping people train for and complete their first 100-mile bike rides. When it comes to tech, I have spent the past thirty years showing people how to use various gadgets and programs to be more productive and creative. With blogging, I went from one blog to four in just a few months and I evangelize for the IndieWeb every chance I get.
My Purpose — To let my curiosity and enthusiasm create and nurture passions I can share with others.
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Tapestry by Iconfactory on Day 2
Announced a year ago on Kickstarter, Tapestry by Iconfactory was
released on February 4. Tapestry is an aggregator that creates a
combined timeline from a long list of possible sources including :
- RSS feeds
- YouTube channels
- Podcasts
- Mastodon
- Bluesky
- Micro.blog
- Tumblr
Items in your timeline are shown in chronological order. There is no algorithm. Searching within Tapestry searches across all feeds. Likewise, setting a mute filter for terms such as "Elon Musk" will block content from every source. Content from different sources is color coded to make readily apparent which resource your information is coming from. If you install Tapestry on a phone and an iPad, your reading position syncs across devices via iCloud. You can combine sources in any way you want to have your own custom feeds. I am still experimenting, but so far I created the following:
- Personal bloggers
- Hard news
- Tech news
- Combined Mastodon and Bluesky home feeds
- Favorite individual social media feeds, since you can add a feed for a single account holder (e.g. Kottke, AOC, Joan Westenberg)
The settings allow you to choose an icon, a theme and a font for the timeline. You can use the in app browser or your default browser to view content. I recommend doing that so you can view content using reader mode. Reddit links open in the Reddit app. Mastodon links open in my browser, although I can use the share sheet to open them in my preferred app. Tapestry also has bookmarks.
The privacy policy states that all searches take place on your
device. The developers do not collect any data.
Iconfactory offers monthly subscriptions for $1.99, yearly for $19.99 and a one time purchase for $79.99. A Mac version is in the works, but is not here yet. There is a free version with limited features. Get it on the App Store
Tapestry by Iconfactory on Day 2
Announced a year ago on Kickstarter, Tapestry by Iconfactory was
released on February 4. Tapestry is an aggregator that creates a
combined timeline from a long list of possible sources including :
- RSS feeds
- YouTube channels
- Podcasts
- Mastodon
- Bluesky
- Micro.blog
- Tumblr
Items in your timeline are shown in chronological order. There is no algorithm. Searching within Tapestry searches across all feeds. Likewise, setting a mute filter for terms such as "Elon Musk" will block content from every source. Content from different sources is color coded to make readily apparent which resource your information is coming from. If you install Tapestry on a phone and an iPad, your reading position syncs across devices via iCloud. You can combine sources in any way you want to have your own custom feeds. I am still experimenting, but so far I created the following:
- Personal bloggers
- Hard news
- Tech news
- Combined Mastodon and Bluesky home feeds
- Favorite individual social media feeds, since you can add a feed for a single account holder (e.g. Kottke, AOC, Joan Westenberg)
The settings allow you to choose an icon, a theme and a font for the timeline. You can use the in app browser or your default browser to view content. I recommend doing that so you can view content using reader mode. Reddit links open in the Reddit app. Mastodon links open in my browser, although I can use the share sheet to open them in my preferred app. Tapestry also has bookmarks.
The privacy policy states that all searches take place on your
device. The developers do not collect any data.
Iconfactory offers monthly subscriptions for $1.99, yearly for $19.99 and a one time purchase for $79.99. A Mac version is in the works, but is not here yet. There is a free version with limited features. Get it on the App Store
Linville Gorge in Western North Carolina, home to some of the most challenging hiking in the Eastern US.
Cost vs. Benefit

When making a decision is easy, it is because there is little to no downside to taking action. I decide to get up early most mornings because I treasure being able to relax with coffee before heading to my office. I choose to be polite to most people I deal with because making people smile and being helpful makes me feel good. Those are easy choices to make for me today, although they are more difficult for some. Getting out of bed is a real challenge when you are depressed. Engaging with people in a friendly way can be intimidating for the painfully shy or introverted folks who do not want to invite uncomfortable small talk.
Often times, deciding to do something that's supposed to be good for me can be challenging. Currently, I am really struggling to be more physically active. I've used the fact that I had my knees replaced a few years back to serve as my excuse for not walking, an activity that I've enjoyed most of my life. I walked before work and at lunch for years, listening to podcasts and books or just enjoying the sounds from the local park or the neighborhood. Now, to my utter embarrassment, even short walks leave me breathing uncomfortably hard. My pace is glacial. To alleviate that, I'll have to put up with it until my body starts to adapt to the increased activity. I'll get to spend less time comfortably reading on my couch. That is the only downside. The upside is weight loss, better health, a longer life expectancy and no longer gasping for air anytime I have to walk uphill. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it hasn't been easy to decide to take the first walk.
Then there are other times when it's not obvious what the best course of action is. Life in America for people with the values I hold dear is full of outrage right now. Every day we find out about some horrible new thing the fascists are doing to vulnerable people. Today I learned that they've removed access to information on a host of topics including hate crime data, military suicides, teen dating violence and access to victim's compensation. It makes me crazy. Of course, I could easily filter out that news and read about new laptops and predictions for the next iPhone. I could just declare that my mental health is too important to risk being constantly angry about things I cannot control. I'm not going to do that, of course, due to having a conscience and not wanting to be a selfish older white guy who acts like nobody else matters as long as I've got mine. That's the attitude that let MAGA take over in the first place.
Every so often it is helpful to make lists of pros and cons or to seek counsel from friends, whether they be IRL or from online communities. Other times, going with my gut instinct is the only thing I can do. Every single day is full of choices. Because I am a world-class procrastinator, my choice is often to just wait on more information. That can sometimes be good, frequently it isn't, But, I give myself a break. Like almost everybody, I am doing the best I can with what I've got to work with. I just have to keep moving forward.
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Make Flying Less Miserable Using These Guides

I only fly two or three times a year. Most of my trips start at the regional airport a few miles from my home and involve changing planes at one or more major hubs, like Atlanta or Charlotte. If you've done much post-9/11 flying, you know the drill. Or, rather, you know that the drill is constantly changing. Shoes on or shoes off? Laptop in or out of the bag? How big can my deodorant be? That's just the stuff you have to know to get past the very first hurdle!
Then there are the rules about luggage size, the number of bags, worries about food and drink, your rights as a passenger when it comes to delays and canceled flights. Just how long can you be made to sit on the tarmac if your plane can't take off? Even if you are a seasoned traveler, there are extra steps to take for longer, overseas flights to have the best experience.
Even if you can afford a first class experience from beginning to end, sometimes the best you can hope for is to just suffer less than normal. The following guides don't answer every question, but they are a good start to having a better experience.
TSA's Top Travel Tips | Transportation Security Administration - Get TSA pre-check, Traveling with strollers, car seats and breast milk, Military travel guide, Up-to-date rules on liquids
10 Health Tips for Plane Travel | Northwestern Medicine - Many people experience some form of discomfort or sickness when they travel by plane. Dry mouth, aching limbs, swollen ankles — they’re par for the course on plane rides and they are, in fact, caused by the very environment you’re traveling in. That means there’s nothing you can do to eliminate these issues entirely, but you can take a few steps in the right direction
7 Must-Know Tips for First-Time Flyers - NerdWallet - You want to head for the gate with the swagger of a seasoned traveler, but that's hard to pull off when you don't know how much it costs to check a bag, or what to expect when you go through airport security.So how can you deal? Reviewing these tips before takeoff can boost your confidence, making your trip easier and more worry-free.
10 Airport Tips & Tricks for Stress-Free Travel - Airports and air travel can be stressful and confusing for new and seasoned travelers alike, though. With all the steps to navigate, rules, and the need to get the timing down just right, flying can quickly become overwhelming without a little help.
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Privileges - Operate Your Mac Safely
As much as you may not want to hear it, using an administrator account on your Mac as your daily driver is absolutely not the best practice. It's bad because it provides full access rights across the system to every application and process running in that account. If malware or a bad actor gains control of the administrator account, they could potentially install unwanted applications, alter system settings, or access or delete sensitive data. Limiting the use of an administrator account helps to mitigate these risks. Unfortunately, most people consider it a huge hassle to use the standard Mac method of temporarily elevating the privileges of a standard account. So they just accept the risk and use an admin account anyway. You don't have to be like them.
Use the free app, Privileges, a macOS application that lets users perform daily tasks as a standard user while easily requesting administrator rights. Users can set a specific timeframe in the app's settings to handle tasks like installing or uninstalling applications. To request admin rights, just click the Privileges icon in your Dock or menu bar. Using a standard user account instead of an administrator enhances your Mac's security and is a best practice. All users, including developers, can benefit from using Privileges. The app is compatible with macOS 11.x - 15.x. It has recently been updated.
Features
- Easy install
- Perfect for day-to-day use
- Turn on admin rights anytime
- Enjoy standard user security
- Command line use supported
New Privileges 2.1 features
- Installer package
- Revoke admin rights at login
- Unified expiration interval for administrator privileges
- Renew expiring administrator privileges
- Run actions on privilege change
- Status item
- Command line tool now also supports Touch ID
- AppleScript support
You can download the Privileges installer on GitHub.
Privileges - Operate Your Mac Safely
As much as you may not want to hear it, using an administrator account on your Mac as your daily driver is absolutely not the best practice. It's bad because it provides full access rights across the system to every application and process running in that account. If malware or a bad actor gains control of the administrator account, they could potentially install unwanted applications, alter system settings, or access or delete sensitive data. Limiting the use of an administrator account helps to mitigate these risks. Unfortunately, most people consider it a huge hassle to use the standard Mac method of temporarily elevating the privileges of a standard account. So they just accept the risk and use an admin account anyway. You don't have to be like them.
Use the free app, Privileges, a macOS application that lets users perform daily tasks as a standard user while easily requesting administrator rights. Users can set a specific timeframe in the app's settings to handle tasks like installing or uninstalling applications. To request admin rights, just click the Privileges icon in your Dock or menu bar. Using a standard user account instead of an administrator enhances your Mac's security and is a best practice. All users, including developers, can benefit from using Privileges. The app is compatible with macOS 11.x - 15.x. It has recently been updated.
Features
- Easy install
- Perfect for day-to-day use
- Turn on admin rights anytime
- Enjoy standard user security
- Command line use supported
New Privileges 2.1 features
- Installer package
- Revoke admin rights at login
- Unified expiration interval for administrator privileges
- Renew expiring administrator privileges
- Run actions on privilege change
- Status item
- Command line tool now also supports Touch ID
- AppleScript support
You can download the Privileges installer on GitHub.
Lonesome Lake in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, seen from the shoreline and again the next day atop Franconia Ridge in the background.


Shaving Sucks. Why Do We Do It?

I joined the military when I was 18. Every enlisted soldier's introduction to that lifestyle is basic training, a nine week period where other soldiers a few years older than you yell at you a lot and make you do things that don't always make a lot of sense. One of the things they make you do is shave your face every day, whether you need to or not. God help you if your bear growth is faster or heavier than normal, because you will spend much time defending your genetic abnormality to green suited screaming men who do not believe that you adequately groomed yourself that particular morning.
I've worn facial hair almost all of my post-military life. I don't like to shave. It takes time I'd rather use to something more useful. I don't like the mess, the cleaning up of the mess, the potential for cutting myself, the cost of razors and blades or anything else associated with the ritual society inflicts on us.
The freaks who perpetuate the idea that shaving is necessary have existed throughout history. It didn't make any more sense in the olden days than it does now. Read on.
The History & Evolution of Shaving
History of Women's Shaving – The Razor Company
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Technology Edition of the Blog Questions Challenge

I'm apt to write about almost anything, but the subject that got me into blogging was tech. It's only fitting that I end up participating in this current iteration of the blogging question challenge.
I was challenged by Kyle - Blog Questions Challenge: Technology Edition - Kyle's Tech Korner
When Did You First Get Interested In Technology?
I started late. For years, I avoided anything related to computers because I thought they required something I didn't have — advanced math skills. I associated them with the brainy guys who read books on physics from high school. My brother was one of those guys, and he had a computer, so that reinforced my belief. It wasn't until my uncle, whose twin passions were coon hunting and tractor pulls, got a computer that I thought I might be able to learn something about using a PC. It was his DOS 386 where I first logged on to an online community, Prodigy and learned that what you can do with technology is practically limitless. It was December 1993. I was 28.
What's Your Favorite Piece Of Technology All-Time?
It's a toss up between the first computer I built myself and my first Mac, but I'm going with the Titanium Powerbook G4 my job provided me soon after it was released in January 2001. It's the computer I used to transition from the Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X. I used it to run old Mac admin tools like Mac Manager and Network Assistant and the late, great productivity suite, Apple Works. I even had a painfully slow copy of PC Anywhere on it for doing Windows chores required by my job. I was so enamored with Apple tech that I learned more in six months of using that Powerbook than I had in years of Windows usage.
What's Your Favorite Piece Of Technology Right Now?
I have almost every bit of Apple kit one can get apart from AirPods and that dumb ass strap on face computer, no disrespect to anyone who spent $4K on one. And, although I love my phone and never, ever worry about using it too much, my favorite piece of gear is my M2 MacBook Air — the fastest, most responsive laptop I have ever used. I have an M3 iMac at work, but I prefer the MBA. I associate it with fun and learning and all the emotions that come with having done so much writing with it over the past year of non-stop blogging.
Name One New Cool Piece Of Technology We'll Have In 25 Years!
It's my sincere hope that whatever we have in 25 years is a tool developed outside of Silicon Valley and the disturbing privacy invading, autocrat coddling, wealth extracting tendencies of today's big 5 predators: Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Google. I love what Apple tech has provided me over the years, but the recent trend by the company and its leadership has been to flout as many laws as it can to extract as much wealth as it can from people like me. There is no longer even any lip service to making the world a better place. In 25 years, I want to be able to use affordable tech that provides value in a 100% ethical way — whatever it looks like.
Final Thoughts
To me, the primary value in tech is and has always been to connect me with other humans. I am still impressed by tools many take for granted — instant messaging, email, web publishing viewable by anyone in the world within seconds. Computers can and do bring people closer. They can and do spread good ideas and empower people. Of course, they also do the opposite some times, but I have hope that the arc will swing into the light.
I'd like to see what @jarunmb@techhub.social, @dhry@mastodon.socialmastodon.social and @mbjones@social.lol have to say.
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Latest Apps of Note from Mac Menu Bar
Luuk over at Mac
Menu Bar has been busy as usual, keeping up with the latest releases
of new Menu Bar apps for the community. Here are my favorites from the
recent additions:
AutoShot - Automatic screenshots in set intervals - This app automatically takes a screenshot of your workspace at intervals you specify and even if you are using multiple monitors. You can choose the file format you want to use for the screenshots and where they are kept in your file structure. You can alleviate concerns about excessive disk usage by setting auto-delete parameters. (Free)
Sprinkles – Customize any website - One of the features that Arc browser users like is the ability to apply custom CSS to websites. With Sprinkles, you can bring that functionality to Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Sprinkles runs a tiny webserver on your machine. When you visit a website, the browser extension asks this server for scripts. The server looks for 4 files in your Sprinkles scripts directory:
- global.js
- global.css
- github.com.js
- github.com.css
When there's a hit, the extension adds the provided JS and CSS. (Free)
Mackernews - If you frequent Hackernews to see the latest goings-on in the tech world, this tiny app makes it easy to see and connect to the latest hot stories. Just choose the headline from a dropdown menu and instantly load the story. (Free)
AutoRun - Run Apps. Mac App Store - This simple app can be used to launch apps or run scripts at a specific time or at regular intervals. Some possible use cases:
- Run Applescript to eject backup disk before you wake up so you can just disconnect it
- Launch a file synchronization app once a day to back up folders to cloud drives
- Run scripts to start and stop apps you don't want running simultaneously on two computers
- Automatically launch your task manager, calendar, email and browser every morning just before you wake up (Free)
Latest Apps of Note from Mac Menu Bar
Luuk over at Mac
Menu Bar has been busy as usual, keeping up with the latest releases
of new Menu Bar apps for the community. Here are my favorites from the
recent additions:
AutoShot - Automatic screenshots in set intervals - This app automatically takes a screenshot of your workspace at intervals you specify and even if you are using multiple monitors. You can choose the file format you want to use for the screenshots and where they are kept in your file structure. You can alleviate concerns about excessive disk usage by setting auto-delete parameters. (Free)
Sprinkles – Customize any website - One of the features that Arc browser users like is the ability to apply custom CSS to websites. With Sprinkles, you can bring that functionality to Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Sprinkles runs a tiny webserver on your machine. When you visit a website, the browser extension asks this server for scripts. The server looks for 4 files in your Sprinkles scripts directory:
- global.js
- global.css
- github.com.js
- github.com.css
When there's a hit, the extension adds the provided JS and CSS. (Free)
Mackernews - If you frequent Hackernews to see the latest goings-on in the tech world, this tiny app makes it easy to see and connect to the latest hot stories. Just choose the headline from a dropdown menu and instantly load the story. (Free)
AutoRun - Run Apps. Mac App Store - This simple app can be used to launch apps or run scripts at a specific time or at regular intervals. Some possible use cases:
- Run Applescript to eject backup disk before you wake up so you can just disconnect it
- Launch a file synchronization app once a day to back up folders to cloud drives
- Run scripts to start and stop apps you don't want running simultaneously on two computers
- Automatically launch your task manager, calendar, email and browser every morning just before you wake up (Free)
32-Bit Cafe, A Comprehensive Resource for Bloggers and Personal Websites

A web site for baby bloggers or even experienced ones needing some fresh ideas, 32-Bit Cafe has plenty to explore. It has guides and tutorials, page ideas, website topics, art and graphic design, technical info and a massive resource list.
You've just made a website, but now you're unsure where to go from here. Here are some ideas for things to add and techniques to learn. If you need more inspiration, browse other folks' websites and surf the 'net! You'll surely find something that you want to add to your own personal website.
Learn about:
- Accessibility
- Beginner HTML
- JavaScript
- Blogging Platforms
- Static site generators
- Code generators
- Code snippets
- Analytics
- Guestbooks
- Forms
- layouts
- Web Hosts
- Webrings
What Books Had the Greatest Influence on You?
It's the last night of this trip and my last repost. This list of the most influential books in my life inspired several other bloggers to create their own lists. My original offer still stands, if you make one, let me know and I'll link to it.

I think you can figure out a lot about a person if you know what books have had the most impact on them. At one point or another, each of these books was my current favorite. They all had a lasting impact on me. I'd love to see your list. It doesn't have to be 15 books and you don't need to be impressive (although if you really loved War and Peace, by all means list it). If you make a list, let me know and I will add a link to it.
- Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth (motion study?)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (thanks, Mom!)
- Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi (in 5th grade!)
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (the first of many SciFi books)
- A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (changed my life)
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (best…novel…ever)
- From Here to Eternity by James Jones (pre WW2 Hawaii)
- The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter (about turn of the 20th century baseball players)
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (planted a seed in my character)
- Fields of Fire by James Webb (Vietnam novel by the Virginia senator)
- Woodie Guthrie, A Life by Joe Klein (recommended by Bruce Springsteen)
- The Rider by Tim Krabbé (a novel about cycling)
- Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill W. and others (life saving)
- The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn
- The New Centurions by Joseph Wambaugh (the best police procedural writer ever)
Quick Reviews - For Sharing and Reference
If you're looking for a quick and easy way to share you general opinion and ratings of movies, TV shows, games, books or whatever, Quick Reviews, a new app by Indy developer, blogger, YouTuber and podcaster, Matt Birchler can generate a graphic for you in just a few clicks.
The free version lets you create unlimited reviews and allows you the leeway to control all the design elements: accent color, font, theme, rating icons, light/dark mode, default review type.
Quick Reviews also has clipboard detection and will use the graphic you've copied to automatically illustrate your review. You can also set it to automatically copy your review text out to your clipboard when saving the finished graphic.
The paid version, a $9.99 subscription, offers to populate your review metadata, including art from The Movie DB, allowing you to even import a suggested rating if you like. You can also import movie reviews from your Letterboxd account.
Both versions of the app feature filtering by media type, year and rating.
The current 1.0 release of Quick Reviews is not yet Mac compatible, but it's on the developer's roadmap. As for now, creating a quick graphic to share on social media or on a personal blog is supremely easy and quick. Matt is also the kind of thoughtful developer needed in the Mac community.
Get Quick View in the iOS App Store.
Quick Reviews - For Sharing and Reference
If you're looking for a quick and easy way to share you general opinion and ratings of movies, TV shows, games, books or whatever, Quick Reviews, a new app by Indy developer, blogger, YouTuber and podcaster, Matt Birchler can generate a graphic for you in just a few clicks.
The free version lets you create unlimited reviews and allows you the leeway to control all the design elements: accent color, font, theme, rating icons, light/dark mode, default review type.
Quick Reviews also has clipboard detection and will use the graphic you've copied to automatically illustrate your review. You can also set it to automatically copy your review text out to your clipboard when saving the finished graphic.
The paid version, a $9.99 subscription, offers to populate your review metadata, including art from The Movie DB, allowing you to even import a suggested rating if you like. You can also import movie reviews from your Letterboxd account.
Both versions of the app feature filtering by media type, year and rating.
The current 1.0 release of Quick Reviews is not yet Mac compatible, but it's on the developer's roadmap. As for now, creating a quick graphic to share on social media or on a personal blog is supremely easy and quick. Matt is also the kind of thoughtful developer needed in the Mac community.
Get Quick View in the iOS App Store.
This Weeks Bookmarks - Wikenigma, Winter Camping, Militia Danger, $30K Tip, Protecting Democracy, Billionaire BS, Legal Weed

Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns - Wikenigma is a unique wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge.
Outdoorsy Minnesotans: I winter camped and so can you. Probably. - Two winter camping novices spend a night out with an Arctic explorer to learn how to stay warm -- and even enjoy -- camping in freezing weather.
Who Will Stop the Militias Now? - By granting blanket clemency to the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has unleashed violent, and loyal, paramilitaries.
Pizza driver gets 30K More - A pizza delivery driver in the throes of a brutal snowstorm found himself at the center of a heartwarming viral story after a meager $2 tip sparked an outcry that turned into an avalanche of generosity.
10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy - Democracy Docket - The most common question I receive is how everyday citizens can help in the fight for democracy. My advice, take the first step, start with something small and see what works for you. Here are ten things all of us can do.
Billionaires Should Not Exist — Here’s Why | Teen Vogue - In a fair society, there would be no billionaires. Bernie Sanders says they shouldn't exist and Elizabeth Warren sells mugs of their tears. I'm talking about billionaires and making the case that an economic system that allows them is immoral.
Legal Weed Didn't Deliver on Its Promises - Not to be a buzzkill, but advocates touted a host of benefits and no real costs. That's proved to be a fantasy.
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Rego - An App for Bookmarking Places
I've been using Rego to bookmark locations for the last eleven
years, using seven different iPhones. I have over 600 places saved in
various categories, including:
- Restaurants
- Coffee Shops
- Accommodations
- Parks
- Residences (friends and family)
- Bookstores
Whenever we travel, it's easy to find places where we've enjoyed eating in the past. The same with coffee shops and hotels and rental properties. Adding a new location can be done onsite, from an address or pulled from the metadata from a photograph. Bookmarks contain GPS coordinates, street address where applicable, notes, date added and a stock photo or one or more of your own. You can also use custom pin colors and designate any location as a favorite.
You can also use Rego when hiking or fishing offshore.
Rego provides plenty of navigation options, with internal maps or working with external apps like Google Maps or TomTom. Your bookmark collection stays on your device. If you opt in, you can back up to Dropbox. There is not an option to use any other cloud provider, including iCloud.
You can get a free trial of Rego that allows you to add up to 10 locations. To add more, you can subscribe monthly for $2.99, yearly for $9.99 or opt for a lifetime purchase for $24.99.
Rego - An App for Bookmarking Places
I've been using Rego to bookmark locations for the last eleven
years, using seven different iPhones. I have over 600 places saved in
various categories, including:
- Restaurants
- Coffee Shops
- Accommodations
- Parks
- Residences (friends and family)
- Bookstores
Whenever we travel, it's easy to find places where we've enjoyed eating in the past. The same with coffee shops and hotels and rental properties. Adding a new location can be done onsite, from an address or pulled from the metadata from a photograph. Bookmarks contain GPS coordinates, street address where applicable, notes, date added and a stock photo or one or more of your own. You can also use custom pin colors and designate any location as a favorite.
You can also use Rego when hiking or fishing offshore.
Rego provides plenty of navigation options, with internal maps or working with external apps like Google Maps or TomTom. Your bookmark collection stays on your device. If you opt in, you can back up to Dropbox. There is not an option to use any other cloud provider, including iCloud.
You can get a free trial of Rego that allows you to add up to 10 locations. To add more, you can subscribe monthly for $2.99, yearly for $9.99 or opt for a lifetime purchase for $24.99.
How to Degoogle Your Life

I'm traveling this weekend, visiting family and supporting my wife, who is running the Miami Marathon. This is a repost from the spring of 2024.
There is a lot of talk out on the Internet about people trying to increase their online privacy. Folks are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of information harvested by big tech companies, and increasing uncertain about what those companies are doing with all that they know. Who are they selling it to, and what are they doing with it in turn? Google is at the heart of many people's lives, especially if they use an Android phone or a Chromebook. Many of the rest of us are still using Google as our default search engine. We are using Gmail and Google Drive and Google Docs and any of a dozen other tools and services owned by the company. If you've had enough and would like to try to reduce or eliminate Google from your life, you are going to need help. This article by crackerjack tech journalist, Justin Pot, is a good starting place.
How to Quit Google, According to a Privacy Expert
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The Phones of Normal People

Note: I'm still traveling and short on time, so I'm sharing a post from back in May that touched a nerve with many people in the geekspace.
Now, I realize that there are some folks in the geek space who still make use of default apps. Robb Knight's project from the winter of 2023 taught us that. By and large, though, the things that people in tech related fields do with our phones, laptops, and tablets fall far, far outside what normies do with theirs. Even further from the norm is what the professional nerds do. Those folks who make their living from monetized blogs, podcast ads, subscriptions and other forms of content are so far removed from what your Mom does with her phone that they could be living on another planet. I saw many bloggers today venting a little over the vapors the content production machine types are having about the new iPads and the fact that those darn folks at Apple just won't listen to them.
I live at the intersection of normies and tech because I do IT support for a living. I have to talk to your Mom at work in the language she speaks about her computer and her phone. I know, trust me, I really know how much she hates changing her password and how much she really doesn't want to have to download and configure a two-factor authentication app. I know how frustrating it is to search for Microsoft Authenticator in Apple's App Store only to have the number one hit to be a $40 paid app and not the free product from the folks in Redmond. You know what's important to your Mom? That her icons don't move, that's what. Last year, Microsoft had an errant patch Tuesday that ended up removing the Office icons off the desktop of corporate computers.I spent a couple of days explaining to people that, no, we didn't "delete Word off your computer," and talking them through recreating the shortcut. That's a crisis. Not being able to use the Finder on an iPad is not a crisis.
Pete Brown said it well, "the vast majority of iPad owners are using the device to read Kindle books, play Candy Crush, and take bad photos." There are millions of us nerds out there using the best calendar and note-taking apps, but there are tens of millions of people perfectly happy with what Apple or Google gave them. Maybe they have downloaded a few apps (and probably never deleted them) to try out. They might even be pretty good at Instagram, but they are not us. They do not know what version of the operating system they are running on anything. They do not care. They hate updates because they interrupt stuff they'd rather be doing. They don't care about the new features being announced at WWDC because they do not want to learn how to do new things with their already too complicated tech. They are the baseline. We are the outliers.
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Christmas Tree Rd., Sampson County, NC I took this picture because it represents the kinds of things you can still see in the rural south. I’m recording - not proselytizing nor mocking.
<img src=“https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2025/day-one2025-02-01-at-07.34.56.jpeg" width=“600” height=“392” alt=“A horse stands beside a rustic, red barn with corrugated metal roof. Large white text reads: “JESUS SEEK AND FIND HIM FOR ETERNAL LIFE.” Surrounding are leafless trees and open fields.">
This is a female eclectus parrot. They look so different from the males that scientists who discovered them thought they were two different species. #birds
The List

I appreciate the people who read this blog. I'm grateful for your attention, your comments and for the great blogs so many of you maintain. I'm currently traveling and spending time with family I haven't seen in 10 years. Tonight's post is from April when I was just getting started. Straight from the heart.
Part of my daily routine is to record three things in my daily journal entry for which I'm grateful. I've been doing it for a long time. I try not to be too repetitive, so I'm always on the lookout for things to identify and add to my list. It helps to ask myself that question multiple times a day. I found a good parking spot? Boom! Grateful. My clothes fit particularly comfortably today? Boom! Grateful. A text from one of my grown kids, a tasty lunch at a familiar restaurant, a good report at the dentist - I'm always on the lookout.
I'm lucky in that I have everything I need even if I don't have everything I want. I learned how to tell the difference between those two things a while back and that skill serves me well. Life is by no means perfect, I weigh too much, some of the people I love the most live too far away to see them as much as I would like. I sometimes regret not getting further along the career path I chose than I did before I retired. All of those things are mitigated by other factors. I've lost weight before. With technology, I can stay in touch with my kids and grandkids fairly easily. I may not have retired as the CIO of a tech company, but I had a solid 8-5, Mon-Fri job that left me plenty of time to do the stuff that really brings me joy.
I battled alcohol for years, sometimes going long stretches without it, years even, only to fall back into bad habits and addiction. I'm forever going to be grateful that things finally clicked one day. I had a moment of clarity that allowed me to see what kind of future I was headed towards and to also see that I could avoid going there. I took my last drink on December 28th, 2008 and have been continuously sober ever since. Being sober isn't my identity. I'm prouder of things I've done than of the simple act of abstaining, but I'm definitely happy not to have that struggle any more.
I've been married since I was 18 - to four different people. Luckily my wife and I have been together a dozen years now and it keeps getting better. I don't suffer from the curse of loneliness or the stress of constant fighting. I didn't go to college. I was a two-time teenage parent, and the workforce was always the place for me. I found the IT field around the age of 30 after having been in the military, working construction and in manufacturing and a stint as a prison guard. Once I got into computers I moved through a couple of different industries before landing in educational technology, the area I made a career. Even post-retirement, I missed it enough to take a low stress job at a local university solving problems for end users.
My wife and I have enough dough that we don't have to worry about the things that used to be terrifying when I was younger: an unexpected car repair bill, medical expenses, the death of a major appliance. We don't have helicopter money but don't have to pinch pennies either. We can afford to help out the kids when they need it. It feels good. I'm not going to lie. At the end of most days, I go to bed pretty happy. I have enough in my life to keep me busy. I still love technology as much as I did when I bought my first computer (on a Sears card in 1993). I have repaired the damage my bad habits caused in my life. I'm fortunate and I'm grateful and I'm glad to make that list every single day.
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AppAddict Free App List #3
This is the third collection of free apps reviewed on AppAddict. Links to the first two collections are posted below. I've downloaded and installed each of these on my own laptop. In many cases, I've added them to various workflows for my day job and blogging pursuits. I'm sorry for the recent double post to your RSS feeds. This post may also go out twice, but after that I hope the problem is solved.
A Curated Collection of Free Apps
Another Curated Collection of Free Software
Shareful - A Free App I Use Every Day
Two Free Apps for Mac OS Installation Ease
Free Apps \#3
Recents App for Mac - A Free Intelligent File Launcher
MarkEdit - A Pure Markdown Editor for Free
Royal TSX for Remote Management
Simplenote - Free, Rock Solid and Dependable for Over a Decade
SingleFile - For Safari and Other Mac Browsers
Ente Auth - The Free Authy Replacement for Your Mac and iPhone
Sloth - Activity Monitor on Steroids
Cronica - A Free, Privacy Focused
Media Tracker for Mac and iOS
MacTracker - Can You Call Yourself a Fanboy If You Don't Have This Installed?
Orange Card - Get Info Easily for Free
Glympse Location Sharing - Free and Secure
Zero Duplicates Free Duplicate File Finder
OpenVibe - Free Social Thread Aggregator
Resilio Sync - Secure, Private Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
Lossless Cut - Save Time When Editing Videos
Background Music - Per App Volume Control and More
Unsplash Wallpaper App - Free Unlimited Wallpapers at Your Fingertips
FSNotes - A Free and Open-Source Successor to NValt
Using Google Photos on iOS Makes Leaving Meta Easier
Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
AppAddict Free App List #3
This is the third collection of free apps reviewed on AppAddict. Links to the first two collections are posted below. I've downloaded and installed each of these on my own laptop. In many cases, I've added them to various workflows for my day job and blogging pursuits. I'm sorry for the recent double post to your RSS feeds. This post may also go out twice, but after that I hope the problem is solved.
A Curated Collection of Free Apps
Another Curated Collection of Free Software
Shareful - A Free App I Use Every Day
Two Free Apps for Mac OS Installation Ease
Free Apps \#3
Recents App for Mac - A Free Intelligent File Launcher
MarkEdit - A Pure Markdown Editor for Free
Royal TSX for Remote Management
Simplenote - Free, Rock Solid and Dependable for Over a Decade
SingleFile - For Safari and Other Mac Browsers
Ente Auth - The Free Authy Replacement for Your Mac and iPhone
Sloth - Activity Monitor on Steroids
Cronica - A Free, Privacy Focused
Media Tracker for Mac and iOS
MacTracker - Can You Call Yourself a Fanboy If You Don't Have This Installed?
Orange Card - Get Info Easily for Free
Glympse Location Sharing - Free and Secure
Zero Duplicates Free Duplicate File Finder
OpenVibe - Free Social Thread Aggregator
Resilio Sync - Secure, Private Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
Lossless Cut - Save Time When Editing Videos
Background Music - Per App Volume Control and More
Unsplash Wallpaper App - Free Unlimited Wallpapers at Your Fingertips
FSNotes - A Free and Open-Source Successor to NValt
Using Google Photos on iOS Makes Leaving Meta Easier
Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
Looking for Inspiration? Look to the People!

The Stonewall Uprising
Almost all the rights and privileges we enjoy in our daily lives happened because common people fought for them. I'm a veteran, and I am not being disrespectful when I say that the real fight for freedom happened at home between the people and the reluctant ruling class. The fight for freedom isn't something that only happens on the battlefield. Take some time and read about a few struggles. Get inspired. The time is coming when more of us will be called on to stand up against the fascists and corporations seeking to remake America into some throwback model of ugliness.
Child Labor
What Ended Child Labor in the US - Labor Rights History
Child labor in the United States - Wikipedia
Womens' Right to Vote
40-Hour Work Week, Workers' Compensation, Right to Organize
The history & evolution of the 40-hour work week | Culture Amp
A Brief History of Workers' Compensation - PMC
Labor Movement ‑ America, Reform & Timeline | HISTORY
Anti-Worker Violence
Bogalusa Labor Massacre, Attack on Interracial Solidarity
Civil Rights
Leaders in the Struggle for Civil Rights | JFK Library
The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change
Stonewall and Beyond
How the Stonewall uprising ignited the pride movement
The First Pride Was a Riot: The Origins of Pride Month
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Mountains I Have Loved
Silent Valley Reservoir, County Down, Northern Ireland
I was sitting in a hostel in Maine with multiple other hikers. I asked this good old boy from Tennessee if he'd taken the side trail the day before to see the spectacular overlook from Spaulding Mountain. He looked at me confused and said, "I wouldn't take a side trail to watch a dragon fight a unicorn." He had one thing on his mind, obviously. He was ready to reach Mt. Katahdin and finish the Appalachian Trail.
Although there are a seeming countless number of beautiful views along what is, after all, called a national scenic trail, most of the journey is spent in what hikers call the green tunnel. You see nothing but trees, rocks and a never-ending footpath. In many places, towering rhododendrons form a literal tunnel, blocking out the sky and any view up or down the mountain you're hiking on.
I'm from the south and I love the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but we can't hold a candle to the beauty one experiences in northern New England. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are breathtaking over and over. Going above the tree line in the White Mountains is unforgettable. The hundreds of lakes scattered through the dense woods of southern Maine allow you to snap photos every couple of miles worthy of being made into post cards.
I'm partial to mountains when it comes to looking for landscapes to appreciate. One of the most beautiful days of my life was spent driving the high road to Taos, New Mexico from Santa Fe. There is little to no humidity, unlike what we have in the eastern mountains. So there is no haze. The sky is crystal clear and a clear blue that abruptly changes to many shades of green as your eye moves down to the peaks of the mountains. The mountains are taller than what I'm used to. After all, it is ski country. You can return to Santa Fe along the low road which skirts the Rio Grande in high walled canyons.
Fans of America's mountains should visit Colorado Springs. From anywhere in town, you can see Pikes Peak. A train ride to the top is only a few doors and is something to put on your bucket list. Also in there are, the Garden of the Gods provides ample opportunities to capture photographs of the landscape and of the big horned sheep who live there.
For a different kind of beauty, the Mourne Mountains, located in County Down in Northern Ireland are a mostly treeless expanse of grasslands divided by stone fences and few man-made structures. There are a couple high mountain reservoirs that catch the water they need down in Belfast. The few people who do live there are friendly. If you're lucky, you can find a tea shop where you can get a cuppa with a couple of biscuits to sip while you sit beside a peat fire and just take in the wonderful Irishness of it all.
My bucket list includes seeing the Alps in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Recently, as Internet friend told me that there is a trans-alpine railroad journey from east to west on the South Island of New Zealand that provides some of the best views to be seen on planet Earth, and now I want to go there too. I have no great desire to see Kilimanjaro or the Himalayas, even though the beauty of those places in undeniable. I think the altitudes would do me in.
What about you? What mountains have you loved?
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White Top Mountain in southwest Virginia was the site of a huge traditional music festival for a few years towards the end of the Great Depression. Located in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, it remains undeveloped. It’s bisected by the Appalachian Trail and a good spot to see black bears.
RsyncUI - a GUI for the powerful CLI Utility
RsyncUI is the successor to Rsync OS X. It is a graphical user interface for the powerful command line utility, rsync, a file synchronization utility that has its roots in the Linux world. RsyncUI is an Apple native app, 100% written in Swift. All of the actual work is still done by rsync, buy you can skip much of the learning curve involved in using the CLI.
Pure rysnc can sync files between remote and local servers. Rsync has many options that can help you define the connections you make, and allow you to specify files that should be excluded in a transfer. Rsync is great for complex file syncs and for transferring a large number of files. When used with cron, rsync can also make automatic backups.
Features
- Sync to local attached storage
- Sync to computers on the LAN or the Internet
- Passwordless login by SSH key
- Snapshot creation
- Profiles to organize tasks
- Quick tasks for repetitive file operations
- Data restoration from remote servers
How to get RsyncUI
RsyncUI can be installed via Homebrew or download from GitHub:
brew install --cask rsyncui
RsyncUI - a GUI for the powerful CLI Utility
RsyncUI is the successor to Rsync OS X. It is a graphical user interface for the powerful command line utility, rsync, a file synchronization utility that has its roots in the Linux world. RsyncUI is an Apple native app, 100% written in Swift. All of the actual work is still done by rsync, buy you can skip much of the learning curve involved in using the CLI.
Pure rysnc can sync files between remote and local servers. Rsync has many options that can help you define the connections you make, and allow you to specify files that should be excluded in a transfer. Rsync is great for complex file syncs and for transferring a large number of files. When used with cron, rsync can also make automatic backups.
Features
- Sync to local attached storage
- Sync to computers on the LAN or the Internet
- Passwordless login by SSH key
- Snapshot creation
- Profiles to organize tasks
- Quick tasks for repetitive file operations
- Data restoration from remote servers
How to get RsyncUI
RsyncUI can be installed via Homebrew or download from GitHub:
brew install --cask rsyncui
A cold morning on the Uwharrie Trail. We were hiking along and heard the unmistakable sound of bagpipes echoing through the woods. Cresting a hill, we saw the piper, a considerable distance off the trail, standing on a small rise just playing away. So odd and memorable.
Thoughts on the Quantified Self

I enjoy collecting information about the things I do and looking back over it, just as a form of journaling. Since tech is my jam, I try to automate collecting as much information as I can. There isn't a real point to it. I'm not trying to discover anything or achieve some kind of life hack. Currently, I'm not tracking any sort of health data, even though I've got an Apple Watch. It can collect information on heart rate and sleep quality/quantity, both of which I've been interested in before. I even have a digital scale and a blood pressure monitor, both with Wi-Fi to feed information into Apple's health app.
The type of information I'm interested in these days has more to do with culture and creativity. I use web services that track my television and music consumption automatically. I record the books I read into Goodreads because that information can be exported into other formats. I use a location tracking app that doesn't send the information anywhere other than to my encrypted iCloud account. I also use an app to bookmark notable places I've been, like restaurants, parks, coffee shops and hotels. That app stored its data in a cloud account that only I have access to.
When I was training for long-distance cycling, data collection had a different flavor because I had numerical goals: trying to hit 10,000 miles and get 30 or more rides of 100 miles completed in a calendar year. My Garmin bike computer recorded all of that, along with speed data plus my heart rate and pedaling cadence. Some people even have power meters on their bikes to determine the wattage they generate on rides. I didn't use Strava, but I did use the Garmin website to store my information.
- To record TV shows watched - Trakt
- Track App Purchases - AppRaven
- To track music - Last.fm
- To record books read - Goodreads
- Private Location Tracking - Geofency
- Location Bookmarking - Rego
- Step Counting - Pedometer++
- Heart Rate Data - HeartWatch
- Sleep Data - Autosleep
- Walking/Running - Runmeter
- To connect different apps - IFTTT
- Journal app - Day One
- Notes App - Obsidian
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Little Luxuries

I remember vividly when I was finally able to go grocery shopping without having to constantly calculate the cumulative cost of the items in my basket. On more than one occasion I had to reluctantly tell the cashier that I'd decided not to get an item or two when my math was bad, and I ended up short while standing at the register. I remember, too, the inability to afford a full tank of gas in the beaters I drove in my early adulthood. I rarely had more than $10 at a time when to buy fuel. When the day came that I could fill up the tank whenever I needed to, I felt like I'd reached a new level in the game of life.
One of the best mental health practices anyone can adopt is what 12-steppers call an attitude of gratitude. I've been makinga three-bullet list in my journal for well over a decade. Many days I record nothing but the little luxuries life offers. I'd rather have a whole basket of the little things than a big, fancy car.
I lived in a 100-year-old farm house in high school. For air conditioning, we had a couple of window units in the house, but none of them reached my bedroom. Our heat was a wood stove. My first adult jobs were mostly of the outdoor type. When I finally scored employment with the state, it was at a prison constructed decades ago. There was no AC, just giant floor fans to blow the hot air around. Subsequently, I moved to a giant Westinghouse factory with a massive machine shop, high ceilings and shipping bay doors open to the summer weather. I'd already turned 30 before I finally made my way into the white-collar world where I could work at a desk, sitting down in air conditioning.
We didn't eat out much when I was a kid. I'd use my money from whatever little hustles I had going on to occasionally treat myself to some fast food. We lived for a while in Jacksonville, NC and there was a place on the outskirts of town selling three hot dogs for a dollar. I loved that place! To this day, I get more excited than I probably should by the prospect of restaurant food, I don't care how mundane. I'm super happy if I get to go to a taco trailer, and on top of the world if we go to a real sit-down Mexican place with chips and salsa. We could conceivable afford to eat out for every meal, and it's only Wonder Woman's sensibilities that keep from indulging in that.
I've only slept a new mattress a couple of times in my life. One of those times was just a few years ago when we got one of those foam jobs that comes in a box and expands when you take it out. After relying on cheap hand-me-downs, actually having a quality place to sleep was a luxury I didn't know I needed. It's a rare night when I don't feel incredibly lucky climbing beneath the sheets. My super-power is being able to sleep anywhere at any time under just about any conditions. I can now save that skill for when I really require it.
There are plenty of other things that make me feel a little like a Rockefeller:
- Never, ever going on a road trip without a stop by the Circle K for soda and a snack
- That first trip to a bathroom with porcelain after spending days upon days on a hiking trip
- Owning and using fleece lined slippers
- Being able to get the fastest Internet you can get to a residential building
- Car repairs that don't go on a credit card
- Rarely saying no to our favorite charities
- Every pair of Levis blue jeans I've ever owned
I'm not a perfect gratitude machine by any means. I despise flying. I am almost always glad to be traveling somewhere, but the miraculous act of hurtling across the country miles up in the sky leaves me singularly unimpressed and grouchy. I also thought email was cool for a while until I realized it was a way other people could add items to my to-do list. Then I didn't like it as much. Still, though, there is enough of that poor kid left in me that any time I buy something and I don't feel forced into getting the cheapest model of whatever it is, I'm amazed on the inside. I feel like I've arrived.
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Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
There are various Internet search tools available for Macs, but if you are a Raycast user, you can search just about any website without having to install an extension if you take the time to set up Quicklinks. Raycast is a Mac automation tool that extends the power of Spotlight and can replace other utilities, like clipboard managers, emoji pickers and window managers. (See use cases) Raycast offers a few preconfigured site searches in its own library, but you can add your own by adapting the search URL and using a dynamic placeholder.
To configure Quicklinks, open Raycast with your usual shortcut and then press ⌘+, to bring up the Raycast preferences window. Click Extensions > Quicklinks, and you'll be presented with the interface you need. There is also a Raycast command Create Quicklink. You can get detailed instructions here.
Here are the Quicklinks I use
Google w/out AI - [www.google.com/search](https://www.google.com/search?q=){Query}&udm=14
All Music - [www.allmusic.com/search/al...](http://www.allmusic.com/search/all/*){Query}
Amazon - [www.amazon.com/s](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=){SEARCH}&sprefix=
Bluesky - [bsky.app/search](https://bsky.app/search?q=){Query}
DDG - [duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=){Query}
Gmail - [mail.google.com/mail/](https://mail.google.com/mail/)\#search/{query}
Macupdater - [macupdater.net/app_updat...](https://macupdater.net/app_updates/search.html?q=){Query}
HBO/Max - [play.max.com/search/re...](https://play.max.com/search/result?q=l){Query}
Reddit - reddit.com/search?q={Query}
Wayback Machine - [web.archive.org/web/*/](https://web.archive.org/web/*/){query}
[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=){argument name="Article"}
YouTube - [www.youtube.com/results](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=){Query}
Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
There are various Internet search tools available for Macs, but if you are a Raycast user, you can search just about any website without having to install an extension if you take the time to set up Quicklinks. Raycast is a Mac automation tool that extends the power of Spotlight and can replace other utilities, like clipboard managers, emoji pickers and window managers. (See use cases) Raycast offers a few preconfigured site searches in its own library, but you can add your own by adapting the search URL and using a dynamic placeholder.
To configure Quicklinks, open Raycast with your usual shortcut and then press ⌘+, to bring up the Raycast preferences window. Click Extensions > Quicklinks, and you'll be presented with the interface you need. There is also a Raycast command Create Quicklink. You can get detailed instructions here.
Here are the Quicklinks I use
Google w/out AI - [www.google.com/search](https://www.google.com/search?q=){Query}&udm=14
All Music - [www.allmusic.com/search/al...](http://www.allmusic.com/search/all/*){Query}
Amazon - [www.amazon.com/s](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=){SEARCH}&sprefix=
Bluesky - [bsky.app/search](https://bsky.app/search?q=){Query}
DDG - [duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=){Query}
Gmail - [mail.google.com/mail/](https://mail.google.com/mail/)\#search/{query}
Macupdater - [macupdater.net/app_updat...](https://macupdater.net/app_updates/search.html?q=){Query}
HBO/Max - [play.max.com/search/re...](https://play.max.com/search/result?q=l){Query}
Reddit - reddit.com/search?q={Query}
Wayback Machine - [web.archive.org/web/*/](https://web.archive.org/web/*/){query}
[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=){argument name="Article"}
YouTube - [www.youtube.com/results](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=){Query}
If You Read This Tiny Apple Rant - I'll Give You Some Good Automation Tips

Apple is both proving to be something other than the romanticized ideal corporation many tech people once thought it to be. It is a ruthless profit machine committed to taking advantage of every legal and close to legal loophole it can to "return value to shareholders." That means extracting capital from the working class to put it into the hands of the investor class. I'm an Apple guy, but I am fully aware that the company decided last year to take 30% of Patreon contributions away from podcasters and bloggers and other creators who downloaded the app from the App Store. There was a god-damned thing anybody could do about it, either.
So, when I mention my love for Apple tech, it is in the context of what the ecosystem allows me to do, which is get work done with tools I enjoy using. I don't feel a kinship with the ghost of Steve Jobs,a miserable bastard if there ever was one. The current CEO just gave $1 million to Donald Trump, so screw him too.
If you use a Mac to GSD - here are a few links with useful information on automating your workflow,
Easily find Raycast Extensions!🚀
Coding Bull Junky – Automation and Personal Productivity for macOS
My Triumvirate of Mac Automation Technology – Mike Burke
Sync Mac/PC and iOS using Syncthing + Möbius Sync
How to Use Karabiner Elements to Get More Out of Your Mac Keyboard - TechPP
How To Use Hazel To Automate Your Repetitive Tasks - Asian Efficiency
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Cooking With Men

My mother believes in participatory humanity. Whatever she's doing, she welcomes you to join right in. Some parents discourage their kids from using household appliances or cooking because I guess they are scared the kids might break something or get hurt. My Mom does not have that fear. I don't remember not knowing how to start a load of clothes in the washing machine, turn on the dryer (after cleaning the lint filter because you don't want the house burning down) and I certainly don't remember feeling helpless or lost in the kitchen.
I remember being tasked with cooking bacon for breakfast. Mom had these distinct tongs used for just that purpose. A few years ago, when I mentioned how I'd never been able to find a set like that for myself, she gave me hers, the same ones I used 50 years ago as a kid. I know for a fact that some food prep tasks she handed off to me were things she hated doing herself. Grating cabbage for coleslaw is a prime example. I'm willing to bet she only has it when I'm visiting her, and she can rope me into doing it. I didn't mind helping, actually. Back in the day, we didn't worry about raw eggs in cake batter and getting to lick the batter from the mixing bowl or the beaters from her handheld mixer was a rite of passage.
I left home as a teenager and got married. My wife could cook and enjoyed making fancy dishes, but I took on the day in and day out food prep duties. She was a military brat and didn't know much about Southern cooking, My grandmother advised her to season vegetables with a little grease, as we do down here. Mema was referring to pork grease, rendered from fatback or bacon, but the young lady I was married to didn't catch that part and soon poured hamburger drippings all over a pot of green beans and didn't understand why they weren't as tasty as she expected.
My kids all managed to make it into adulthood without dying of malnutrition. Their food memories tend to center on things they didn't like rather than all the delicious meals I prepared for them. My son, was the kind of kid who ordered chicken fingers and french fries at Mexican restaurants, has excellent taste as an adult and an adventurous palate, but he swears that the only way he survived his teenage years was by begging me to let him make extra sandwiches to eat in his room. My girls favorite food group was cereal. The happiest days of their lives were the times when I'd buy something apart from raisin bran.
After the kids left home, and I was heavily involved in endurance sports, I learned a lot about nutrition and training. Some of my favorite activities burned massive amounts of calories. I was dedicated to clean eating and went through chicken breasts, sweet potatoes, bags of spinach and cage free eggs like mad. When Wonder Woman and I got married, she was just as dedicated to that diet as I was. She still is, although not quite as rigidly as before. She still prefers brown rice over white rice. I've never known her to eat canned vegetables. For years, she prepared a week's worth of the most colorful salads imaginable every Sunday, and we ate them for lunch during the week,
Since I decided I didn't like being retired and went back to work, we've opted for meals that are quick and easy to prepare so we can have more leisure time at night. I've promised to go back to more cooking from scratch when I finally retire for good. I have a quite nice grill and smoker combo that hasn't gotten a lot of use lately. It does great pork shoulders, beef brisket, whole chickens and turkey breasts. I need to fire that back up soon.
I get the same complaints other male cooks get, primarily centered around being messy, which is true. I am messy. It took me a while to learn how to judge the right portion sizes for my diminutive wife, who, while indeed small, also has to stay fueled up for ultramarathon training. I have also learned that by some miracle of modern medical science, I am to blame for any numbers on the reports she gets after her physical that she doesn't like. Either I'm not serving enough foods rich in vitamin D, or I'm screwing up her HDL and LDL readings.
She still loves me though and readily accepts her plate each night when I deliver hot chow to her after she's waited for me to prepare dinner for us. Few things make me happier than to see her dig into whatever I've made.
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Watching the sunrise through my bedroom window. Our house borders on a small expanse of wetlands I hope never gets developed.
Located on a two-lane road leading to the Uwharrie Mountains in Montgomery County, NC, this house has been frozen in time for as long as I can remember.
<img src=“https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2025/opt-2025-01-28-1-6.jpeg" width=“600” height=“399” alt=“An old, wooden cabin stands abandoned amidst overgrown vegetation and leafless trees. A rusted metal roof and broken windows indicate disrepair. A “Private Property” sign is visible.">
Charlotte, the largest city in NC, is surprisingly easy to maneuver on a bike. I was on foot the day I snapped this, but I’ve ridden through there before.

Krisp - AI Meeting Assistant for Noise Cancellation and Transcription
If you have online meetings using apps like Slack, Microsoft
Teams. Zoom or Google Meet, you can get free noise cancellation via AI
as well as meeting transcripts and recordings via Krisp, a business app with a generous free
tier. Make sure you clearly understand the privacy policy before doing
so.
Noise Cancellation
The AI-powered noise cancellation is bidirectional. It removes any extraneous sounds, background voices and echos. If you elect to use only this feature, none of the data from your calls is recorded on Krisp's cloud servers. Users of the free plan get 60 minutes of cumulative noise cancellation per day. If you purchase a pro ($8 a month)or a business ($15 a month) plan, you get unlimited voice cancellation.
Recording and Transcription
If you choose to let Krisp record your calls onto its cloud servers, you can get unlimited diarized transcription for free and the paid plans also offer audio and video recordings of your meetings. Krisp technology can generate meeting notes complete with action items. The data is presented to you in a way that makes it easy to share with other meeting participants.
My Experience
Krisp encourages people signing up for an account to use their work email by granting a seven-day free trial of the pro plan to those who do. As part of the sign up procedure I had to give it access to either my Outlook calendar or Google calendar. My organization doesn't allow third-party apps to access anything inside our Microsoft 365 tenant, so I opted to connect a Google account. It asked for access to all my contacts, which I did not grant. It asked for access to my calendar events, which I did grant. Furthermore, it asked for access to all calendars to which I have access. I said no to that. After that, my account was created, and I was provided an opportunity to download the software, which comes as a package installer.
Reading the Privacy Policy
Krisp says that the recordings of your meetings are encrypted and stored on its cloud servers, and that it does not use the content for any business purposes. However, it does collect considerable data about your specific computer, tying the machine identifier to your account identity. It makes that data available to third-party vendors and if you want to know what happens then, you have to find out who those vendors are and what their individual privacy policies are. Krisp also
This site uses Google, Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook remarketing services or tags to advertise to previous visitors to Krisp on third-party platforms such as those mentioned. With the help of cookies or tags, these remarketing services allow it to advertise itself to visitors who may have visited them. Thankfully, they provide opt-out links to every one of the services right from the privacy policy page.
The other thing that jumped out at me about their privacy policy was their clear admission that if the cops come for your data, Krisp is going to give it to them.
I can see a use for the app for areas of my life that aren't sensitive and that I can wall off from my primary Internet presence. Work related calls don't give me privacy heartburn and volunteer activities that don't involve any kind of political engagement are OK too, if I feel like going to the trouble of making a separate Google or Microsoft account for them. Otherwise, I'll find some other solution.
Krisp - AI Meeting Assistant for Noise Cancellation and Transcription
If you have online meetings using apps like Slack, Microsoft
Teams. Zoom or Google Meet, you can get free noise cancellation via AI
as well as meeting transcripts and recordings via Krisp, a business app with a generous free
tier. Make sure you clearly understand the privacy policy before doing
so.
Noise Cancellation
The AI-powered noise cancellation is bidirectional. It removes any extraneous sounds, background voices and echos. If you elect to use only this feature, none of the data from your calls is recorded on Krisp's cloud servers. Users of the free plan get 60 minutes of cumulative noise cancellation per day. If you purchase a pro ($8 a month)or a business ($15 a month) plan, you get unlimited voice cancellation.
Recording and Transcription
If you choose to let Krisp record your calls onto its cloud servers, you can get unlimited diarized transcription for free and the paid plans also offer audio and video recordings of your meetings. Krisp technology can generate meeting notes complete with action items. The data is presented to you in a way that makes it easy to share with other meeting participants.
My Experience
Krisp encourages people signing up for an account to use their work email by granting a seven-day free trial of the pro plan to those who do. As part of the sign up procedure I had to give it access to either my Outlook calendar or Google calendar. My organization doesn't allow third-party apps to access anything inside our Microsoft 365 tenant, so I opted to connect a Google account. It asked for access to all my contacts, which I did not grant. It asked for access to my calendar events, which I did grant. Furthermore, it asked for access to all calendars to which I have access. I said no to that. After that, my account was created, and I was provided an opportunity to download the software, which comes as a package installer.
Reading the Privacy Policy
Krisp says that the recordings of your meetings are encrypted and stored on its cloud servers, and that it does not use the content for any business purposes. However, it does collect considerable data about your specific computer, tying the machine identifier to your account identity. It makes that data available to third-party vendors and if you want to know what happens then, you have to find out who those vendors are and what their individual privacy policies are. Krisp also
This site uses Google, Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook remarketing services or tags to advertise to previous visitors to Krisp on third-party platforms such as those mentioned. With the help of cookies or tags, these remarketing services allow it to advertise itself to visitors who may have visited them. Thankfully, they provide opt-out links to every one of the services right from the privacy policy page.
The other thing that jumped out at me about their privacy policy was their clear admission that if the cops come for your data, Krisp is going to give it to them.
I can see a use for the app for areas of my life that aren't sensitive and that I can wall off from my primary Internet presence. Work related calls don't give me privacy heartburn and volunteer activities that don't involve any kind of political engagement are OK too, if I feel like going to the trouble of making a separate Google or Microsoft account for them. Otherwise, I'll find some other solution.
When I was growing up this gentrified street was a mess of GIs, prostitutes and street hustlers - not fountains and flower pots. Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC
This is Not Nam. This is the Internet. There Are Rules.
Like the memorable scene from the Big Lebowski, I sometimes feel the need to remind people on the Internet that there is some structure to the world and that failing to acknowledge that can leave you entering a world of pain.
Read the Room
Every online community develops its own personality, its in jokes and its taboos. Take some time to learn them. You may not agree with them, and if not that's OK. Stick around, earn some respect and maybe you can play a part in changing things over time.
Gatekeeping Makes You Look Like a Jerk
I've run into some remarkable people online - like a developer who worked on the original version of the Safari web browser, a guy who was coming up with ideas for the Mac OS X dock while the rest of us were still using Classic, the guy who coined the law "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." I've read many, many social media and blog posts by these illustrious folks and I have never seen one of them try to throw their weight around or act exclusive in any way. Everyone has been a newb and no one is an expert on everything. Cool it with the gatekeeping.
Unless It is Morally Necessary - Do Not "Well Actually" Folks
Sometimes accountability needs to be the order of the day and fate might select you as the person who has to bring it about, but be honest. That's not going to happen regularly and once you've had a turn calling out something egregious, let someone else do it next time. Don't make yourself the Internet Sheriff. Most of the time, someone making a mistake online can just be ignored. Plenty of people will recognize where they are falling short, You don't get any points for correcting other grown ups.
Resist the Urge to Tell People Why You Hate the Thing They Love
I feel like this ought to be easier than it seems to be. But, it's not. Go some place on the Internet tonight and proclaim your love for your favorite ice cream, car, web browser, vacation spot, sexual position or just about anything elese and it won't be long before someone arrives to tell you why it sucks. I sure would like to start a movement to stop people from doing this.
We Are Living Through A Facsist Takeover of America - Don't Tell People Not to Talk Politics
Lucky me got to live most of my life playing this game on easy mode - straight, white and male. Sure I've had some tough times but none of them were because I'm straight or because I'm white or because I'm a dude. Of all the people that are going to get screwed over in the coming years, I'll probably be in the group that suffers the least real damage and yet I can not shut up about what's happening. People are freaking out and they have every reason to be. I get it that you are bored with it all. That you'd prefer not to be constantly reminded of how horrible things are for people. Just keep that to yourself. Go spend some time alone. Don't try to police what people want to talk about in the Year of Our Lord 2025, because a lot of them want to talk about how an evil bunch of people are attacking some of the most vulnerable members of society.

Chances Are, You Probably Helped Make Internet History

The 20th Century featured the greatest acceleration of science and technology in human history. For hundreds of years, the lifestyles of most societies on earth were not remarkably different than what had been common one, two or even three hundred years or more into the past. Then within a single hundred year period, sanitation, medicine, electricity, air and space flight changed the world so much that no one from 1900 would ever feel at home the night we all survived Y2K. It happened fast.
Many Millennials, Gen X and Boomers types witnessed the birth of the Internet as we know it today and most participated in some now fondly remembered relic of the early days: Prodigy, AOL, Compuserve, GeoCities, StumbleUpon, Digg - the list goes on. Take a look through these collections and see where you were and what your were doing while the Internet evolved right in your own home.
50 Old Websites: A Nostalgic Journey From Our Digital Past
10 Popular Websites: What They Looked Like When They First Started
The Invention of the Internet ‑ Inventor, Timeline & Facts | HISTORY
18 Famous and Interesting Internet Milestones [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Big Internet Museum | Communication Arts
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My wife took her sister on a celebratory trip after she finished her cancer treatments. While touring the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Skye, Wonder Woman captured these snaps and sent them to me.




Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
I rode by this house a thousand times on my bicycle before ever stopping to realize how cool it looks. Located on River Road, near Wade, NC on a farm bordering the Cape Fear River.
What Happens When You Read Too Many Books on Habits

In the fall of 2017 I got the urge to investigate self-improvement in a methodical and purposeful way after reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, an Ivy League educated attorney and former Supreme Court law clerk who gave all that up to become a writer. I wanted no part of any self-help, psychobabble, New Age flavored literature. I decided to come up with a plan based on scientific studies of practices that would improve my life physically and mentally. Some of the other books I read include:
- 10% Happier by Dan Harris
- Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of US by Matt Fitzgerald
- Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister
- Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning by Dan John
- Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman
- Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kaneman
By January 1, 2018, I was ready. I had a list of goals, spreadsheets, apps for tracking various habits and a folder of bookmarks on the idea of the quantified self. My primary goals were:
- Average walking four miles a day for the entire year, counting only purposeful walks and not steps taken in the course of the day.
- Get a minimum of 10,000 steps every day
- Close the rings on my Apple Watch activity tracker every day requiring at least 30 minutes of exercise, 800 calories burned and no prolonged sitting over 12 hours each day
- Meditate every day in a sitting position, alone using a timer
- Read 52 books
- Deadlift and squat 400 lbs
Out of pure stubbornness, I hit every one of those goals. I once had to go for a walk during a hurricane, but I managed to get my steps that day. I was blessed with good health the entire year, maintaining a healthy weight and dealing with my arthritis successfully.
It was fun, and I am glad that I did it, but it was not the happiest year of my life, which is what I was going for. It wasn't that it was bad, not at all, but it didn't elevate me to a new plane of existence or anything. It was a series of tasks that took self-discipline and dedication, not much different than other challenges I'd given myself through cycling or long-distance hiking. Wonder Woman was her usual awesome self. She never complained about the hours I spent walking or behind closed doors on my meditation pillow or with my nose stuck in a book.
I continued some habits deep into 2019. It wasn't until August of that year that I broke the streak of 10,000-step days and closed activity rings. My arthritis flared up significantly in the spring. Between the uncaring attitude at my orthopedist's office and the weaponized incompetence and malevolence of my insurance provider, I dealt with untreated chronic pain for months while fighting to get the treatment I was entitled to. I ended up as depressed as I'd been in years, and bitter that creating the perfect set of habits hadn't made me immune to the black dog that has hounded me since my 20s.
I'm all for anyone doing the things I did. I believe in the benefits of exercise, meditation and mental improvement. My experience is that none of those things are miraculous cures or preventatives for the slings and arrows that life can throw at you.
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Believe It or Not!

I don't want to brag about my trivia knowledge, but if the British government ever finds out How good I am, they will probably ban me from the country to keep me from showing up and winning all the pub quizzes. I have studiously been assimilating useless knowledge since I was old enough to read. At a young age, I was a recognized expert on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the Bermuda Triangle. I've written previously about my multiple readings of the Guinness Book of World Records. Another series of books from my younger days played a big part with my fascination in knowledge that won't do anything more than give you something to talk about is the Ripley's Believe it or Not books. The series started as single panel newspaper features by American cartoonist and amateur anthropologist Robert Ripley.
Although Ripley died more than 75 years ago, the franchise he started is still going strong with museums, known as odditoriums all over the world and books still in print.
Today on Ripley's Believe It or Not - Comics by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! - GoComics
Ripley's Believe It or Not! - YouTube
Ripley’s “Believe it or Not!” – fact check – Ramblings
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DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
- Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
- Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
Winning with the Kiddos

Aren't Saturday's amazing? I don't work on Saturdays. I get up whenever I want, usually early and spend my morning writing and doing the kind of tech chores I enjoy: curating photographs, adding entries to Day One Journal, perusing my saved articles on Pocket and via RSS and scrolling through the feeds of my favorite people on Mastodon and Bluesky.
After a couple of hours of that this morning, Wonder Woman and I made a drive across town to pick up the only three of our grandchildren who live close by: 12-year-old Forrest, 10-year-old Harper and 7-year-old Tristen. Despite their age, we still collectively refer to them as "The Babies." When we arrived, they came busting out the front door before our car even came to a complete stop. Obviously, all three of them were standing by the front window just waiting for us to get there. Their Mom came out to say goodbye and then the rest of us were off.
The first stop was Zorba's, our neighborhood diner, which the kids call "The Pancakes," after one of their favorite breakfast choices. Tristen is mostly just a little carnivore, though. When the waitress asked him what he wanted, he looked here in the eye and said "Sausage." She asked if he wanted any grits or eggs to go with it. He thought for a minute and said, "Bacon." That's what he got, too.
We only live a couple of blocks away, so we were home immediately after we ate.Forrest teases me because my preferred perch on the couch is well-worn and obvious. All my electronic gear is on the table beside where I sit, along with coffee cups, screen wipes, and other items he relates to me. Every once in a while, he will jokingly try to climb into my spot, which generally prompts me to ask him if he's lost his mind.
We all just hung out in the living room and talked for a few hours. They told us about school, their Dad's new puppy, and who had been mean to who lately. All of them aspire to be Internet superstars and content creators. Harper already has a private TikTok channel which is shared with just us and a couple of friends. She makes videos of herself doing random things. She disappeared for a while later in the day, and we all assumed she was off in another room making a video.
In a couple of hours they were hungry again, wanting Mexican for lunch, which I was delighted to oblige. I have to work a little on Tristen's cultural sensitivity. Not only does he order chicken fingers and fries, he also complained today because the music was in Spanish and he couldn't understand it. He likes the Latino kids he goes to school with and can correctly use the Spanish pronunciation of their names, so I don't think he has ant budding MAGA tendencies, thank God.
After lunch, we went to see Mufasa: the Lion King, as promised. You have to pass a huge candy store on the way to the theater's front door, and we did not even try to skip past it. We let them get a grab bag and put it in the car before the movie started. We still got popcorn too! The kids all tease me about my proclivity for frequent naps, which I take any time at any place. I didn't know that today they'd already told their Mom they thought I'd fall asleep in the theater with it's soft reclining seats. They were right, or course. Wonder Woman punched me so many times for snoring that my shoulder is sore.
By the time the movie was over, they were ready to go back and see their Mom, who they all adore. We do too. As we pulled into their neighborhood, they pointed to houses for sale and suggested point-blank that we buy one of them because obviously, we want to live closer to them, right? Wonder Woman and I have only been back home for a couple of hours, and I am already looking forward to the next time we can go see The Babies again.
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If you are ever in Norfolk, VA, stop by the Zoological Park and see this little guy. You can walk right through the red panda exhibit, where he lives in a huge oak tree and looks down at visitors all day.
Tech Product Grab Bag

After discussing it for the last 12 years, my wife decided to begin scanning multiple albums of old family photos so that we could some to our new Aura frame and back them all up to the cloud - in three different places: iCloud, Google Photos and Amazon Photos. Our 12-year-old Scan Snap 1300i was not up to the job of scanning hundreds of snapshots. The images had lines in them and the process was slow. It was time to find a new scanner that could handle the assignment without venturing into pro territory, which we didn't need.
I also had some accumulated gift card credit and took the opportunity to cross quite a few things off my wish list.(These are not affiliate links. I'm not trying to make any money, just sharing gear siggestions.)
- Aura Mason WiFi Digital Picture Frame - My favorite gift in ages. All my kids have rights to add photos to is and that's where they share new images of my grandkids. I probably ask my wife to look at the currently displayed picture 50 times a day.
- Plustek Photo Scanner ePhoto Z300 - Our new scanner processes a standard photo in two seconds and automatically straightens any that go through crooked. It was a breeze to set up and configure.
- VENA vCommuteX for iPhone 15 Pro Max Wallet Case (MagSafe Compatible) - I've never used mag safe charging because I like using a case on my phone where I can keep credit cards. This case lets me do both.
- Magnetic Wireless Mag-Safe Charging Station - Cable management and device charging has been a pain in the butt since forever. This is a single stand using one cord and it will charge my iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods.
- Anker USB C Cable, 4 ft 2-in-1 USB C to USB C Cable 140W Max - I've never been let down by Anker products and this two-headed cord will let me charge my laptop and phone from a charger with a single USB-C out port.
- Macally Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac - I prefer a full sized keyboard when using my iMac. The legacy Apple keyboard I've been using has an oddly placed Fn key and req1uires a USB-A connection. This MacAlly keyboard moves the FN key. It's wiress and it can connect to up to three devices at a time, useful to me since I often set up new laptops for customers while sitting at my desk.
- Wurkkos FC11 EDC Flashlight 1300Lumen Rechargeable - I've been wanting a pocket flashlight to add to my EDC and this one was recommended by several Internet friends. It recharges with a USB-C cable and is remarkably bright and useful for working in dim switch closets and when crawling under desks.
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The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
This Week's Bookmarks - 2025 Books, Beans and Greens, 10 New Museums, 2025 Movies from Books, Trump's MAGA Makeover, Reddit Bans on X, Roman Emperor with Shortest Reign

Thrilling debuts to big-name authors: 40 of the most exciting books to read in 2025 - From the most anticipated literary debuts to the return of heavyweights like Stephen King and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, there's plenty to add to your TBR pile this year.
Barbecue Beans and Greens Recipe | Food Network Kitchen | Food Network - Easy, full-flavored sides are a must for your summer cookout rotation. This side features canned black eyed peas, punched up with spicy barbecue sauce and smoky bacon. Frozen chopped collards are a great convenience product which melt into this saucy side dish.
Ten Must-See Museums Opening Around the World in 2025 | Smithsonian - New institutions dedicated to artificial intelligence, West African art, barbeque and more are expected to welcome visitors this year
The Most Anticipated Book Adaptations of 2025: Movies and TV Shows - The New York Times - Hilary Mantel's "The Mirror and the Light," a new "Bridget Jones" and Michael Bond's Paddington Bear series are some of this year's most anticipated adaptations.
Trump executive orders list: What orders did Trump sign on first day - President Trump is carrying out his pledge to give the U.S. a MAGA makeover by signing a slew of executive actions in his first week that erase progressive policies and fulfill his poisonous campaign promises
More than 50 Reddit communities ban X links to protest Musk - The cascade of link bans came after Musk made a a Nazi salute, which many cited in their protests, among other things.
Which Emperor had the Shortest Reign? - by James Coverley - Over the past few weeks, we've looked at some interesting details about Roman emperors - how old they were, on average, how many of them were assassinated and so on - and today, we're answering a reader's question about which of them ruled for the shortest amount of time.
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Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
-
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
-
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom. –Ursula K. Le Guin
Last year, Wonder Woman took her sister on a trip to Scotland to celebrate her recovery from cancer. They toured the Isle of Skye and sent me this wonderful sunset picture. Enjoy.
Time Travelling
The Remains of Ashmont School Where My Mother Went in the 1950s
If you live in Europe, I'd like for you to read this post without laughing at me or immediately going on social media to mock me. I'm going to talk about old stuff. Yes, I know I live in the United States and that we don't really have any old man-made artifacts here. Many of you in Ireland, England and on the continent live in houses that would be museums and tourist attractions if they were transported here. I was in Leeds in the UK a few years back and my host stopped by Kirkstall Abbey on a whim and didn't make a big deal out of it. The place was built in 11152. It blew my mind, but to him, it was just a place on the edge of town.
I live in North Carolina. The First Nations people who lived here when the first English settlers landed included the Cherokee, Tuscarora, Catawba, Lumbee, and various Siouxan tribes like the Occaneechi, Haliwa-Saponi, Waccamaw Siouan, Meherrin, and Coharie. We still have a sizable Native population. One county over from where I live, there are between 40K-50K members of the Lumbee tribe. There are ancient burial mounds in my county located near the Cape Fear River.
There are no remnants of the state's most famous early settlers, known as the lost colony. A group of 117 English men and women landed on Roanoke Island, a few miles inland from site where several hundred years later the world's first airplane flight would occur. All of these settlers disappeared in a three-year period when the organizers of the colony returned to England. Included in the missing was Virginia Dare, the first child of English descent born in the new world. Today, Roanoke Island is home to the community of Manteo, a nice place to visit on the way to the Outer Banks.
We were one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776. There are historical markers a few miles from my neighborhood where the British Army encamped on the way to get their asses handed to them at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. I could walk to the spot where the state ratified the constitution from my driveway. Because of numerous fires through the years only a couple of pre-revolutionary buildings still exist in town, fittingly, the largest of them was a once a tavern.
My paternal lineage, meaning my ancestors with the same last name that I have, came to the US around 1800. The first of us listed in a US census stated that his father's birthplace was France. I suspect he may have been the son of an English soldier, born to a camp follower. Whatever. I have no real way of knowing the exact story. What I do know that is we've been hanging around this same county now for 225 years.
I am not one of those Southerners with any sort of positive attachment to my heritage connected to the Civil War. Numerous ancestors from all branches of my family were in the Confederate Army, some drafted, some volunteered. One died of disease before ever going into battle at a giant unsanitary recruitment center located on what is now the grounds of the veterinary school for NC State University. Another was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. My favorite was an extremely reluctant soldier who served at three different times but only for very short periods. He kept trying to get out of it and come back home. Good for him.
Another branch of the family were Quakers. They didn't participate in the economy of enslaved people, nor did they serve in the Army. They farmed and worked in cotton mills and generally minded their own business.
For you Outlander fans, part of my family were Highland Scots who came here after the Battle of Culloden which ended the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland and placed it firmly under English rule. The family name is McFadyen and they were good Presbyterians who farmed the land on southeastern NC into the 20th century. One of them, my grandmother's brother died in Italy fighting Nazis during World War Two.
Even though we are deep into the 21st century now, there are still signs of the past all around, if you know where to look. There are tobacco barns built from logs and chinked with mud on various farms. That type of tobacco production was last practiced in the 70s. I have hiked all the way through the NC mountains from our border with Georgia all the way to Virginia. Some of the trails today's hikers follow are the same routes Native Americans were using when we got here, I am always amazed when I am following a difficult mountain trail and I come to a stone fence or giant stone piles and I realize that at one time the thickly forested Appalachian mountainsides were clearcut and hardscrabble mountain folks planted crops there and plowed the fields with mules.
I am not a flag waving patriot in the traditional sense. I am not proud to be from where I'm from. I'm not ashamed of it either. We all have a history and I just happen to know mine because I'm curious and sought the information. That information gives me a connection to the past I would not otherwise have.
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Watch People Trying to Do the Right Thing

My people aren't putting up with it, and by my people, I mean those committed to human rights and being active, committed allies to the LGBT community, people of color, women, immigrants and the poor, By "it" I mean the non-stop, relentless attacks by the US government and the people who voted for it. Now is not the time for lukewarm support or just trying to get along. Nope. Now is the time to be more outspoken than ever before. It's time to make your average middle-class liberal friends put up or shut up. It's time to recognize that our society is literally in a war that the right-wing declared on all the people I mentioned above.
The little microcosm of society inhabiting the IndieWeb just went through some growing pains over what supporting marginalized people, in this case, trans people, looks like and what it takes to demonstrate commitment to them. Feelings got hurt. Words got written. Some people experienced growth. Other people exposed their true selves and not always in the best way.
I don't have the forensic skills to unearth every detail, but I would like to share some select and enlightening posts from people involved and on the periphery, so you can see what struggle in the modern era looks like.
The pressure to stay genteel - Coyote Tracks
Let's Try to Always Provide a Dignified Way Forward | Havn
Fuckity fuck fuck - annie's blog
My husband asked me tonight, … | Small Good Things
Adam Newbold: "This is a time to pay close at…" - social.lol
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Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
For anyone looking for an anonymous messaging system, that
requires no account, email or telephone number to set up, Session may be what you are looking
for. With clients for macOS, iOS, Windows, Android and Linux, you can
communicate with just about anyone through a network of 2000
decentralized servers. If a server goes down, the network stays up,
eliminating any one node as a single source of failure.
Session's encrypted messages are sent through an onion routing network. Onion networks encrypt messages with multiple layers of encryption, then send them through a number of nodes. Each node ‘unwraps’ (decrypts) a layer of encryption, meaning that no single node ever knows both the destination and origin of the message. Session uses onion routing to ensure that a server which receives a message never knows the IP address of the sender.
Account in Session are created and secured with a mnemonic seed which can be used to restore your existing Account ID to a new device. Your display name can be anything you want it to be. Session does not collect any geolocation data, metadata, or any other data about the device or network you are using. On your local device, Session allows you to encrypt your local Session database with a PIN code. With this feature turned on, your messages cannot be accessed without knowing your PIN code. If the police or a thief have physical access to your device, they still can't see your messages without your PIN.
Voice and video messaging are current beta features in the app. In early 2025, the back end technology for the app is transitioning to upgraded technology, using crypto-based engineering. Although there are no paid features currently, the non-profit foundation behind the app says that it may implement some in the future, using cryptocurrency. They say the primary private messaging will always be free.
Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
For anyone looking for an anonymous messaging system, that
requires no account, email or telephone number to set up, Session may be what you are looking
for. With clients for macOS, iOS, Windows, Android and Linux, you can
communicate with just about anyone through a network of 2000
decentralized servers. If a server goes down, the network stays up,
eliminating any one node as a single source of failure.
Session's encrypted messages are sent through an onion routing network. Onion networks encrypt messages with multiple layers of encryption, then send them through a number of nodes. Each node ‘unwraps’ (decrypts) a layer of encryption, meaning that no single node ever knows both the destination and origin of the message. Session uses onion routing to ensure that a server which receives a message never knows the IP address of the sender.
Account in Session are created and secured with a mnemonic seed which can be used to restore your existing Account ID to a new device. Your display name can be anything you want it to be. Session does not collect any geolocation data, metadata, or any other data about the device or network you are using. On your local device, Session allows you to encrypt your local Session database with a PIN code. With this feature turned on, your messages cannot be accessed without knowing your PIN code. If the police or a thief have physical access to your device, they still can't see your messages without your PIN.
Voice and video messaging are current beta features in the app. In early 2025, the back end technology for the app is transitioning to upgraded technology, using crypto-based engineering. Although there are no paid features currently, the non-profit foundation behind the app says that it may implement some in the future, using cryptocurrency. They say the primary private messaging will always be free.
Wonder Woman had to cut her planned run short - because her water bottles froze in the 15-degree temperature. Except she never calls them water bottles. It’s always “my hydration” She doesn’t eat while training either. She follows her “nutrition plan.”
What A Drag it is Getting Old

Mick and Keef wrote "Mother's Little Helper," a song about a pill addled Mom a whopping fifty-nine years ago. The line that resonates with me is "What a drag it is getting old." For me, the drag is the physical part of aging, much more so than the accumulated years, which in themselves are kind of cool.
Sports scientists estimate that men reach their physical peak somewhere between 26 and 30, That is so patently messed up because it means that you spend the majority of your life slowly deteriorating. In the major spectator sports, it's the rare athlete who can compete past the age of 40. This doesn't mean that you can't be active, though. In my twenties and thirties, my kids were young and I was trying to get established in my career. Sports and hobbies took a back seat. My most physically active year were my 40s. I was 48 when I hiked the AT.
Wonder Woman is 58 and still running ultramarathons. She's a bit of a mutant, though. We have a physical performance lab at the university where we work. They asked her to come in for a study a few years back. In her early fifties, she was tested as having a fitness level compatible to that of a college athlete in their early 20s. During her first year competing in ultras, at age 52, she ran in and won races at the distances of 50K, 50 miles, 100K and 100 miles. Just for a lark, she ran one road marathon with no special training and placed in the top 10 among thousands of entrants. She also completed a 100-mile bike ride after only very light training over a couple of weekends.
My parents were young when I was born, so even though I'm almost 60, I've still got both of them. My mom also has mutant genes, having walked all the way across Scotland in her early 70s and then completing the Camino de Santiago across Spain just a couple of years later. Dad enjoyed a little too much bourbon and Salem cigarettes for too many years to have maintained much fitness, and today walks with a cane.
I feel like I'm kind of wearing out prematurely myself. After dealing with painful arthritis in both knees for years, a drag physically and psychologically, I had them replaced five years ago. Although ai still have my hair, it turned white within the last decade. Wonder Woman insists I need a hearing aid. At least, I think that's what she said. This year, I finally reached the point where I can't function without glasses. Throw in the other aggravations of male aging, like getting up to pee three or four times a night, and it's no wonder that the trope of grumpy old man seems to fit so well on some days.
On the other hand, having lots of life experience is remarkable. I've lived in seven decades and seen 11 US presidents leave office. I'm in the oldest cohort of Generation X so I can be old without suffering the indignity of being a boomer. Not only that, but I've pumped regular gasoline, used a rotary dial phone and bought vinyl records not to be trendy but because there was no other choice. I saw VCRs and DVD players come and go. I had AOL dial up and a fiber connection to the Internet.
I hope to last a few more years. I want to around when Wonder Woman retires. We're probably won't have any more grandchildren. Thirteen is plenty. In a few more years, though, great-grandchildren should start coming along. I definitely want to be here for that. I also would like to see America come to its senses before I'm gone because I bet Jimmy Carter was pissed having to live out his last months after the 2024 election.
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Remembering Apple's Think Different Campaign

I miss the way being an Apple fan used to make me feel.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, recently donated $1 million of his personal funds to the inaugural fund for Donald Trump. He did this after publicly congratulating him for his win. It made me furious to see the powerful out gay man in the US kiss the ring of the leader of the party that seeks to persecute and demonize LGBT people at every turn.
My IT career became heavily Mac focused in 2000. I went to work for a school district where the majority of computers used by students were LC-575s and Power Mac 5500s. Our new purchases were Bondi Blue G3 iMacs with the infamous hockey puck mouses. There were still plenty of Apple IIe desktops in use. Lots of Oregon Trail was played. We bought hundreds of computers at the time and received boxes of promotional material from our Apple rep. It was my first encounter with the iconic black and white posters of the crazy ones the people Apple selected to represent the Think Different campaign. I still have a few hundred of the rainboa Apple stickers that came with new computers in those days. I wish I had some of the posters too. Today they sell for up to $500 apiece.
The name was inspired by a passage from Jack Kerouac's book On the Road
"The only people for me are the mad ones the ones who are mad to live mad to talk mad to be saved desirous of everything at the same time the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'""
Apple's version was:
"Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them disagree with them glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world
Are the ones who do."
The people pictured in the ads were by and large heroic figures from the 20th century with a couple of billionaires thrown in because nobody's perfect.
- Albert Einstein
- Bob Dylan
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Richard Branson
- John Lennon (with Yoko Ono)
- Buckminster Fuller
- Thomas Edison
- Muhammad Ali
- Ted Turner
- Maria Callas
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Amelia Earhart
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Martha Graham
- Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog)
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Pablo Picasso.
Only three of those people are still alive, Richard Branson,.Yoko Ono and Bob Dylan. Branson may have voted for Trump out of ruling class solidarity, but I doubt Yoko did, and you can god-damned bet your bottom dollar Bob Dylan did not.
Thinking Different about Apple’s "Think Different" Campaign
Think different. • Original Ad
The Legacy of 'Think Different': How Apple's Campaign Continues to Inspire Creatives
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Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
A small but powerful free and open-source utility, Picocrypt, weighing in at only 3MB provides easy to use encryption that is powerful enough to withstand attacks from government agencies. With Picocrypt's simple UI, all you have to do is drag and drop your files, enter a password, and hit Encrypt. There is no need to set up a volume, as there is with other tools like Veracrypt.
Installing Picocrypt is simple. Only download Picocrypt from the official site,. Open the container, and drag Picocrypt to your Applications folder. You may need to manually trust the app from a terminal and control-click on the app if macOS prevents you from opening it:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Picocrypt.app
Features
- Uses extra Reed-Solomon parity bytes to protect from file corruption and bit rot
- Built in customizable password generator
- Comments to store notes, information, and text along with the encrypted file
- Keyfiles, which can be generated and distributed to multiple people if there is joint ownership of information requiring more than one person to authenticate decryption
- Paranoid mode - a double encryption method suitable for government level or whistle-blower secrecy
- File chunking splits large encrypted files into multiple user selectable sized blocks
- Deniability allows encrypted files to appear without identifiable headers so that if they are intercepted, the bad actor in possession of them will have no way to prove what they are. The output volume will indistinguishable from a stream of random bytes, and no one can prove it is a volume without the correct password.
Picocrypt also has Windows and Linux versions, meaning that the recipient of the files does not have to have a Mac to decrypt the files, just the password. Picocrypt is also portable and does not require installation. It can be run from an external drive, such as a USB stick.
Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
A small but powerful free and open-source utility, Picocrypt, weighing in at only 3MB provides easy to use encryption that is powerful enough to withstand attacks from government agencies. With Picocrypt's simple UI, all you have to do is drag and drop your files, enter a password, and hit Encrypt. There is no need to set up a volume, as there is with other tools like Veracrypt.
Installing Picocrypt is simple. Only download Picocrypt from the official site,. Open the container, and drag Picocrypt to your Applications folder. You may need to manually trust the app from a terminal and control-click on the app if macOS prevents you from opening it:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Picocrypt.app
Features
- Uses extra Reed-Solomon parity bytes to protect from file corruption and bit rot
- Built in customizable password generator
- Comments to store notes, information, and text along with the encrypted file
- Keyfiles, which can be generated and distributed to multiple people if there is joint ownership of information requiring more than one person to authenticate decryption
- Paranoid mode - a double encryption method suitable for government level or whistle-blower secrecy
- File chunking splits large encrypted files into multiple user selectable sized blocks
- Deniability allows encrypted files to appear without identifiable headers so that if they are intercepted, the bad actor in possession of them will have no way to prove what they are. The output volume will indistinguishable from a stream of random bytes, and no one can prove it is a volume without the correct password.
Picocrypt also has Windows and Linux versions, meaning that the recipient of the files does not have to have a Mac to decrypt the files, just the password. Picocrypt is also portable and does not require installation. It can be run from an external drive, such as a USB stick.
At certain times of the year, because of the way the barriers islands off the NC coast are positioned, you can catch the sunrise and the sunset in the Atlantic Ocean. This is a sunrise at Kure Beach.
Keeping Secrets Safe

The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
There are many aspects of making your digital life as secure as possible. The links in today's post are to help you get started with encryption, protecting your data from prying eyes.
A Beginner's Guide to Encryption
Which Files Do You Need to Encrypt?
How to encrypt a flash drive for Windows and macOS
How to Encrypt Email on Gmail, Outlook, iOS, Android, and Other Platforms
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Let's Talk about Some Uncomfortable Topics, Shall We?

Since I became politically active in the 90s, I've dealt with some pretty harsh behavior from people who didn't like my views. I'm not just talking about conservatives, either. When I was organizing veterans and military families against the war in Iraq was the worst. I live beside the most populated military base in the United States and even though I'm a vet with two kids who also served, plenty of people were pissed about anyone here openly opposing the war machine. I got death threats in the mail, my car window was shot out in my driveway, and I got some nasty notes taped to my door at work. Other than that, I've just had to deal with the normal name-calling and harassment many lefties endure. Recently, someone added my name to three moderation lists on Bluesky, labeling me a MAGA troll, a porn spammer and accusing me of some sex thing that I was scared to look up.
On the flip side, if you've never been involved in left politics, you have no idea how people on our side can be vicious to each other in stupid purity tests. I've been accused by people who I wanted to be allies with of being insufficiently supportive of Palestine, women, LGBT rights, the environment, the Iraqi resistance and more. The worst people weren't far-left folks, though. The ugliest, most mean-spirited comments I've ever dealt with came from Blue State liberals who think every person in the south is a MAGA loving moron. I've seen people from NY and California and other places literally celebrate natural disasters in NC, including Hurricane Helene last October. I've been told that if I was a real Democrat, that I would move and never talk to anyone from NC again. These superior types don't even realize we have a Democratic governor and AG or that the state GOP has had more than a dozen voter suppression and gerrymandering laws eventually overturned.
I believe in accountability and responsibility. I don't accept unacceptable behavior from people who think that just a bit of fascism or racism is OK. I'm mad at the state of my country, and I feel like lashing out more than is probably healthy. I also know this stuff is complicated and the practical application of my political values and societies expectations are difficult to balance if I turn off the bravado for a minute.
I fantasize about being able to act on the anger I feel about the political state we are in. I'd like to be able to call out every person who has done anything to enable the hateful policies that (white) people are applauding. I would like to refuse to deal with people with backwards views on gender, race, and immigration status. If they want to take food away from hungry kids or medical care away from sick people, I would like to be able to write them out of my life loudly and publicly because they deserve it.
But let's step back into reality for a minute.
I live in one of the larger cities in North Carolina. It votes reliably blue, as do most of the cities of its size in the state. The surrounding rural areas are as red as can be, including the county that employed me for twenty years. Even here in town., many of the residents are former or retired military and most of the white ones are Republicans. If you tried to gauge elections by yard signs, the GOP would win every time. It is not an echo chamber in any way. Conservatives and liberals live and work side by side.
I am very openly on the progressive side, with the appropriate bumper stickers and snide remarks about Republican policy every once in a while. I don't cross the line at work (anymore) but I walk right up to it. Always have. I try to let me fellow white people know that I am not in their club. I'm not the one you come to complain about diversity hiring or to whine about Joe Biden being responsible for egg prices. I will absolutely get loud when subjected to backwards behavior but correcting every non-woke opinion in others is not my life's mission.
I have someone close to me who is lucky enough to live in Austin, TX. He worked for Samsung for 15 years. When the Tesla Gigafactory was built, which was before the company CEO bought Twitter and revealed himself to be a fascist, recruiters for the EV maker made him an attractive offer which he accepted. It was a great opportunity for someone with no degree to get a job in a green industry, making a sizable six-figure salary with stock options vesting in a few years and potential bonuses to offset the two kids he's single-handedly putting through school. He is 100% aware of the behavior of the man at the head of his company's food chain. He does not defend him.
Most of the people in my family who stay informed about politics and have an opinion, lean left, but both of my parents are Republicans, although Mom isn't a Trump voter. One of my Dad's bothers is also conservative, and he happens to be the person responsible for me reaching adulthood without going into the juvenile justice system or foster care. He's the only person in my family who goes to a multi-racial church. He's just constitutionally incapable of voting for a Democrat because we'll take away his hunting rifle…or something. It makes me sad.
I'd like to boast about having come out of the womb with a natural inclination towards perfect politics, but I didn't. I didn't develop any strong political feelings until I was almost 30. I voted for one of the worst Republicans in history when I was 19 out of pure ignorance. I even skipped a couple of elections. I believe I've done an adequate job in the past 30 years of achieving redemption with the help of committed activists and mentors and my own open mind. Someone had to educate me about the backwardness and ignorance I lived in on a whole list of topics:
- Unions
- Israel/Palestine
- US Military Policy
- Criminal justice
- White privilege
- Affirmative action
- LGBT rights
- Patriarchy
I'm not going to confess every sin I've ever committed against the values I hold today, but there were many, from the horrible use of inappropriate language to joining the army and working in a prison. It took what it took to get me where I am today, but, yeah, I wish I'd gotten here sooner and with less baggage. I am not a unique or special case. I know others who've had journeys similar to my own. We made the most of our leaning opportunities and came out better for it. We learned to forgive ourselves, and we didn't defend our former attitudes.
This is not the paragraph where I am going to wrap everything up into a neat package and hand it to you so that you know what to do. I wish I knew. I know that as angry as I am, I also have to practice empathy, understanding, and forgiveness, or I'll just be a shitty excuse for a person. I also have to resist the urge to just get along with people and take the easier and softer way of ignoring things that need to be dealt with. It's a balancing act and a hard one. Just do the best you can and act from a loving place as much as possible,
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Inoreader RSS Gets New Features
Inoreader, the RSS app and service provider, got some new features today with the release of a new browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
- Save and organize content: Collect web pages and social media posts and tag them as you send them to Read later.
- Annotate while you browse: Mark and annotate texts directly in your browser, then revisit your notes anytime in Inoreader.
- Stay on top of your feeds: Monitor account activity, feeds, tags, and Team channels -- all without switching tabs.
- Streamline article sharing: Share content to Team channels or set up rules for automated content distribution.
Existing Features
Custom Monitoring Feeds
My favorite feature, hands down, are the custom monitoring feeds Inoreader allows me to create. It scours the web every hour to search for articles using my keywords. I have monitoring feeds to help me track my favorite software titles for news and tips/tricks. The wizard that creates these feeds lets me decide whether I want to search entire articles or just titles. I can search the entire Internet or just sources from sites whose main RSS feed I follow. As with all feeds on Inoreader, I can set up a highlighter for my search terms (Obsidian, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Micro.blog). I can filter out terms I definitely do not find interesting (Android, Apple Vision Pro, Trump). Finally, I can filter out duplicates and near duplicates so my feed doesn't get inundated on dates when one of my keywords makes the news, for example when updates to a certain title get released. It is possible to place all these keyword monitoring feeds into a folder and to view the output combined. I can even generate an OPML file with the output to share with others!
Newsletter Subscription Replacement
Inoreader allows me to generate email addresses to use in subscribing to newsletters. That way, I get the benefit of their content without having my mailbox clogged up. Like every other feed, these newsletters can be saved to OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. I can export them to Pocket or ReadWise, Instapaper, Blogger, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon or a custom location.
Automation
If you highlight text in any RSS article or newsletter, you can use the highlight to trigger an IFTTT applet. You can do the same with any article you mark to read later. In fact, IFTTT has a dozen different triggers for Inoreader and over 2000 services you can connect it to. You can read your feeds in a web browser or in your choice of RSS readers like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I like their web interface so much that on a desktop, I choose to use a stand-alone web app of their site to read my feeds since it has easy access to most of the extra features offered. On my iPhone and iPad, I use their app as opposed to a separate RSS reader. Their iOS and Android apps have an offline mode allowing you to download content to read later, useful for flights and helping you avoid a separate subscription to a read it late service.
Organization and Backup
You can use folders or tags (or both) to organize your feeds. You can set up notifications for different keywords or material from certain sources. In the settings section of the Inoreader you can look at the health of all of your feeds and easily determine if one is down, allowing you to contact the blogger or publisher of the site in question. If you currently have an RSS provider or reader, Inoreader can easily import your feeds and conversely, it can export feeds for you if you want to use them elsewhere. Your feeds get backed up every day, and you can set them to be saved to a cloud folder synced with your computer so you can have ready access to them. I use Dropbox for this.
Other Features
- Built in podcast player
- Turn Google News searches into feeds
- Customize the look with your own CSS if desired
- Get accelerated updates on certain feeds
- Annotate and save articles
- Multi-lingual content
- Sync your YouTube subscriptions
- Filtered Reddit feeds (see Obsidian posts without having to look at pictures of other people's graphs)
Pricing for all the features I mentioned is $7.50 a month, paid annually. You can download Inoreader for iOS and iPadOS on the App Store.
Inoreader RSS Gets New Features
Inoreader, the RSS app and service provider, got some new features today with the release of a new browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
- Save and organize content: Collect web pages and social media posts and tag them as you send them to Read later.
- Annotate while you browse: Mark and annotate texts directly in your browser, then revisit your notes anytime in Inoreader.
- Stay on top of your feeds: Monitor account activity, feeds, tags, and Team channels -- all without switching tabs.
- Streamline article sharing: Share content to Team channels or set up rules for automated content distribution.
Existing Features
Custom Monitoring Feeds
My favorite feature, hands down, are the custom monitoring feeds Inoreader allows me to create. It scours the web every hour to search for articles using my keywords. I have monitoring feeds to help me track my favorite software titles for news and tips/tricks. The wizard that creates these feeds lets me decide whether I want to search entire articles or just titles. I can search the entire Internet or just sources from sites whose main RSS feed I follow. As with all feeds on Inoreader, I can set up a highlighter for my search terms (Obsidian, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Micro.blog). I can filter out terms I definitely do not find interesting (Android, Apple Vision Pro, Trump). Finally, I can filter out duplicates and near duplicates so my feed doesn't get inundated on dates when one of my keywords makes the news, for example when updates to a certain title get released. It is possible to place all these keyword monitoring feeds into a folder and to view the output combined. I can even generate an OPML file with the output to share with others!
Newsletter Subscription Replacement
Inoreader allows me to generate email addresses to use in subscribing to newsletters. That way, I get the benefit of their content without having my mailbox clogged up. Like every other feed, these newsletters can be saved to OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. I can export them to Pocket or ReadWise, Instapaper, Blogger, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon or a custom location.
Automation
If you highlight text in any RSS article or newsletter, you can use the highlight to trigger an IFTTT applet. You can do the same with any article you mark to read later. In fact, IFTTT has a dozen different triggers for Inoreader and over 2000 services you can connect it to. You can read your feeds in a web browser or in your choice of RSS readers like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I like their web interface so much that on a desktop, I choose to use a stand-alone web app of their site to read my feeds since it has easy access to most of the extra features offered. On my iPhone and iPad, I use their app as opposed to a separate RSS reader. Their iOS and Android apps have an offline mode allowing you to download content to read later, useful for flights and helping you avoid a separate subscription to a read it late service.
Organization and Backup
You can use folders or tags (or both) to organize your feeds. You can set up notifications for different keywords or material from certain sources. In the settings section of the Inoreader you can look at the health of all of your feeds and easily determine if one is down, allowing you to contact the blogger or publisher of the site in question. If you currently have an RSS provider or reader, Inoreader can easily import your feeds and conversely, it can export feeds for you if you want to use them elsewhere. Your feeds get backed up every day, and you can set them to be saved to a cloud folder synced with your computer so you can have ready access to them. I use Dropbox for this.
Other Features
- Built in podcast player
- Turn Google News searches into feeds
- Customize the look with your own CSS if desired
- Get accelerated updates on certain feeds
- Annotate and save articles
- Multi-lingual content
- Sync your YouTube subscriptions
- Filtered Reddit feeds (see Obsidian posts without having to look at pictures of other people's graphs)
Pricing for all the features I mentioned is $7.50 a month, paid annually. You can download Inoreader for iOS and iPadOS on the App Store.
In a year on Micro.blog I’ve only blocked two people: one was a wealthy blogger who posts nothing but his own paywalled content and the other was attacking people for calling out the fash. I think that’s a pretty good record.
One of the mysterious Carolina Bays that lie scattered across the south. - About Carolina Bays
How to Get a Word Count for Any Folder in Your Obsidian Vault
A Python script that will count the words in a folder of markdown files. #Obsidian #ObsidianMD #PKM
I use Obsidian to write a minimum of three blog posts every day as well as technical documents for my job. Of course, I also compose and edit notes in it too. At the end of 2024, I was curious to see how many words I'd written on each blog during the year. Unfortunately, I could not find a plugin that could do this, but I suspected that Python probably could. After working on it for a while with the help of Google Gemini, I had an easy to run script that would work on any folder in my vault. If you have any Python experience, you won't find this difficult at all to use. The only edit you need to make is for the path of the folder you want to evaluate. Just save this in a text editor like BBEdit with a .py extension. Change the permissions on it using chmod and it will be ready to run.
chmod +x pythonScript.py
NOTE: A kind person on Reddit pointed me toward a plugin that has this functionality if you'd rather go that route. It is called Novel Word Count.
The Script
\#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
def count_words_in_markdown(filepath):
"""Counts the number of words in a markdown file.
Args:
filepath: Path to the markdown file.
Returns:
The number of words in the file.
"""
with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
content = f.read()
\# Simple word counting by splitting on whitespace
words = content.split()
return len(words)
def count_words_in_directory(directory):
"""Counts the total number of words in all markdown files within a directory.
Args:
directory: Path to the directory containing markdown files.
Returns:
The total word count across all markdown files.
"""
total_words = 0
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
if filename.endswith(".md"):
filepath = os.path.join(directory, filename)
total_words += count_words_in_markdown(filepath)
return total_words
if __name__ == "__main__":
directory_to_search = "PUT THE PATH TO A FOLDER HERE" \# Replace with your directory
total_word_count = count_words_in_directory(directory_to_search)
print(f"Total words in markdown files: {total_word_count}")
How to Get a Word Count for Any Folder in Your Obsidian Vault
A Python script that will count the words in a folder of markdown files. #Obsidian #ObsidianMD #PKM
I use Obsidian to write a minimum of three blog posts every day as well as technical documents for my job. Of course, I also compose and edit notes in it too. At the end of 2024, I was curious to see how many words I'd written on each blog during the year. Unfortunately, I could not find a plugin that could do this, but I suspected that Python probably could. After working on it for a while with the help of Google Gemini, I had an easy to run script that would work on any folder in my vault. If you have any Python experience, you won't find this difficult at all to use. The only edit you need to make is for the path of the folder you want to evaluate. Just save this in a text editor like BBEdit with a .py extension. Change the permissions on it using chmod and it will be ready to run.
chmod +x pythonScript.py
The Script
\#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
def count_words_in_markdown(filepath):
"""Counts the number of words in a markdown file.
Args:
filepath: Path to the markdown file.
Returns:
The number of words in the file.
"""
with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
content = f.read()
\# Simple word counting by splitting on whitespace
words = content.split()
return len(words)
def count_words_in_directory(directory):
"""Counts the total number of words in all markdown files within a directory.
Args:
directory: Path to the directory containing markdown files.
Returns:
The total word count across all markdown files.
"""
total_words = 0
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
if filename.endswith(".md"):
filepath = os.path.join(directory, filename)
total_words += count_words_in_markdown(filepath)
return total_words
if __name__ == "__main__":
directory_to_search = "PUT THE PATH TO A FOLDER HERE" \# Replace with your directory
total_word_count = count_words_in_directory(directory_to_search)
print(f"Total words in markdown files: {total_word_count}")
A Few Excerpts From the Story of a Long, Long Walk

This blog is the third version of my life online. The first version only exists in fragments via the Wayback Machine. The second version, was composed exclusively on an iPhone 5, usually right at dark while I lay on my back in my tent or in one of the shelters that dot the path of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,189-mile footpath from Georgia to Maine that I hiked on my honeymoon in 2013. It is still online in it's entirety and covers the period in the weeks leading up to starting the trail, through the 156 days we actually hiked and then a few follow-ups as I reflected on the experience. - Lefty and Hush's 2013 Appalachian Trail Journal (Note: Our hike started in Harper's Ferry, WV on May 6. We summited Mt. Katahdin in Maine on July 31st. We returned to WV and walked south towards Georgia where we climbed Spring Mountain on October 9th)
Day One
I should remember this date. Cinco de Mayo, right? Of course it's also the day Hush and I got married and the day we took our first steps on the Appalachian Trail. Busy much?
We were at home this morning (at Midnight). A train ride brought the night took us to Union Station and after an interminable wait, another train deliver us to Harpers Ferry, WV. Within minutes we'd crossed the Potomac river and we were in Maryland. We hiked along the river and the old C&O Canal before diverting to the Harpers Ferry Hostel, we are camping tonight. Since we've not laid down since yesterday morning, I predict a pretty good nights sleep.
I'll kill he urge to wax on rhapsodically about all of this. We are happy, excited, it's Spring and we are in love. Queue the music.
Last Night in New York
Tonight the white noise machine is set to bird calls and mountain waterfalls. After a delicious dinner of Stovetop Stuffing (minus the butter) and a peanut butter covered Clif Bar I treated myself to a wipe down with my trusty bandana by the aforementioned mountain waterfall.
Lying in the shelter with Hush, Piper and Bright Side we are all trying to figure out a plan for Tuesday. Hush and I are in desperate need of some quality down time but the choices are few. The trail towns are small with limited lodging
Going Above Treeline
Today after a three-hour climb we went above tree line and stayed there for two and a half miles. We experienced the unforgettable sight of the barren 5,000 ft. peaks of Mount Lincoln and Mount Lafayette as we climbed the rock strewn ridge line towards them. In gusting winds but under sunny skies we marveled at the 360 degree views of rock slides, small towns, ski resorts and amazingly, the small lake we'd hiked around yesterday. From that lake, we photographed the mountain where we now stood. In the distance we could see the ominous outline of Mount Washington, the tallest point in the Northeast. Amazingly, we could also see a few of the peaks of Southern Maine.
Anyone who tries to get in big miles in the White Mountains is missing a lot. For one, the hiking here is so physically demanding that pushing it will break down all but the fittest. Secondly, blasting down the trail and ignoring the overlooks is something we all do some times. But if you do that here, you're missing more than just another view of trees from overhead. You're missing something special.
I'm way too tired to write much more.
Climbing Katahdin
Everyone at the thruhiker's campsite was up well before dawn. Hush and I were the first to head up the mountain. About two miles up the Dutchmen passed us as we took a break by the last spring below tree line. Those two are practically professional adventurers so we didn't feel bad to see them disappear.
Katahdin has the capability to break your heart. No other mountain throws so much at you. There are sections that look impossible. In one place, pieces of broken (!) rebar stick out of a boulder at rude angles, pretending to be climbing aides. You can't use hiking poles because you must use your hands (and knees, butt, back and in one case my head) to leverage your way ever upward. Thankfully you can see the summit from nearly two miles down the mountain. Fueled by adrenaline, you don't feel much pain in that long third hour of climbing.
We made it to the northern terminus of the AT at 9:30 AM. The Dutchmen took a few pictures for us as they drank the beer they packed to the top for the occasion. We started back down the 5.2 mile knee jarring descent, wishing we had gloves for the rocks. Three and a half hours later we were done.
The Trail Out of Damascus
Welcome to the Abingdon Gap Shelter, a few miles south of the Virginia line. No one is here tonight other than Hush and I. Entries in the log book repeatedly complain about the noisy shelter mice so i suppose we do have some company. All of our food is hanging from the home made mice proof food bag hangers. So are our packs.
We're deep enough into the woods to hear nothing but nature, bird calls, wind in the trees, the buzz of flies and the whine of stinging noseeums. There's no creek here, just a spring at the bottom of the hill, the long steep hill. This shelter, like many in TN I'm told, has no privy, just lots of mysterious trails into the surrounding woods.
We ate our standard dinners, tuna and peanut butter on (separate) tortillas, salty snacks (gluten free pretzels, Chili Cheese Fritos) and candy (Milk Duds and Whoppers). We had some hot tea as well.
Since its our first night out, we went over our plans for the next few days. Thankfully there aren't any long days coming up. That's good. I'm tired, footsore and just don't have as much energy as usual. After a few mild days, ill be ready to do something crazy,
The Last Mountain
We started hiking today at 6:15 AM. The last time we started that early was Maine. We managed to hike in the dark for well over an hour using our head lamps while still making decent time. The trail leading to Springer goes through several gaps but the tread way is good. We had a little extra motivation to make good time.
After we passed the Hawk Mountain Shelter we stopped for our last creek water coffee break. We started seeing other hikers shortly after that. I told every person I saw that today was the last day of our through hike. I was a little excited.
We had 14.5 miles knocked out by 1:15, putting us in the Springer trail head parking lot. We hung out, talking to other hikers, scoring consumable trail magic and trying to come to terms with it all.
When my Uncle Fred and my Dad arrived we headed up Springer, where I got teary eyed only briefly. We were undefeated in our struggle to become thruhikers. We won.
We took a bunch of pictures. I left a rock from Katahdin up there with a note asking someone to take it back to Maine if they happened to be going that way.
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Some Role Models for Journalists

Journalists aren't getting much respect these days, some with good reason. Others are being constrained by cowardly and sycophantic media companies bowing down to MAGA.
When I was in the third grade, my Mom got married to a newspaper reporter. For the next few years we moved all over the state as the chain he worked for kept promoting him from reporter, to city editor to editor in chief. I learned how much work goes into reporting the news as I watched my step dad work long hours at marathon city council meetings for the Gastonia Gazette. I learned how to keep stats at high school sporting events for the New Bern Sun Journal and how to develop film in the darkroom of the Harnett County News. Our family made a trip to Washington, DC once so he could attend a press conference President Ford held just for the NC press. The biggest story he ever worked on was the return of Robert Garwood, an American Marine captured in Vietnam in 1965. Garwood didn't return to the US until 1979. He was sent to Camp Lejeune adjacent to the city of Jacksonville, NC where lived. My step father covered his court martial where he was found not guilty of desertion, the solicitation of U.S. troops in the field to refuse to fight and to defect and of maltreatment
When people criticize everyone involved in reporting the news of being untrustworthy, or sellouts or downright dishonest, I know better. Journalism can be a low paying, thankless job performed ny incredibly dedicated people. Here are a few examples.
Woodward, Bernstein reflect on Watergate reporting 50 years later - ABC News
How investigative master Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre - Nieman Storyboard
The Panama Papers: Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry - ICIJ
How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb - The Intercept
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Another day ends as the sun sets over beautiful North Carolina. One less day of the present political nightmare to get through.
I’m seeing a lot of straight, white male voices who can’t be bothered with how upset some people are by the new reality. Adopting a “look at me, I’m stoic” attitude is the definition of privilege. People freaking out are not being performative, nor are they part of an outrage machine. Attempting to delegitimize the way people feel one day into the new regime is messed up - Me
Nominations for Obsidian Gems of the Year for 2024
These are the different categories and the products nominated by
the community for the 2024 Obsidian.md Gems of the Year, an annual
tradition on Discord. Have fun investigating the favorite new and
existing complements to what, I think, is the best app to come along
since the invention of the browser.
- Best content
- Best template
- Best tool
- Best existing plugin
- Best LLM integration
- Best third-party integration
- Best new theme
- Best new plugin
Best content
- 🇦 Arabic Obsidian Crash Course — by Khaled Mohamed
- 🇧 Bag of Tips YouTube — by Bag of Tips
- 🇨 Beginners Guide Series — by Paul Dickson
- 🇩 David Hurtado Obsidian Publish site — by David Hurtado
- 🇪 Form, Function, & Fun! Obsidian Vault Tour — by CyanVoxel
- 🇫 LeanProductivity — by Sascha Kasper
- 🇬 Love Letter to Obsidian — by Andrej Karpathy
- 🇭 Marco Serafini YouTube — by Marco Serafini
- 🇮 Obsidian Observer — by Nuno Campos, TfTHacker, Theo Stowell
- 🇯 Obsidian: The King of Learning Tools — by Odysseas
- 🇰 Reflections on 4 years of Writing with Obsidian — by Junaid Rahim
- 🇱 Sébastien Dubois Blog — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇲 TTRPG Tutorials — by Josh Plunkett
- 🇳 Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management — by Zsolt Viczián
Best template
- 🇦 Automators Podcast Vault — by sylumer
- 🇧 Bag of Tips TTRPG Template Vault — by Bag of Tips
- 🇨 ChatGPT Web Clipper — by ljavuras
- 🇩 Clipper Templates — by kepano
- 🇪 Dusk Vault — by DuskWasHere
- 🇫 LifeOS for Obsidian — by quanru
- 🇬 Starter Kit — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇭 YouTube Web Clipper template — by harr
Best tool
- 🇦 Actions For Obsidian — by Carlo Zottmann
- 🇧 Browser Search Extension — by Jakob Osterberger
- 🇨 Callout Emojis — by rivea0
- 🇩 Funnel Quick Capture — by NoteSight Labs
- 🇪 Git Sync — by ViscousPot
- 🇫 Obsidian Stats — by Moritz Jung
- 🇬 Plugin Stats — by Ganessh Kumar
- 🇭 Quick Capture for Obsidian — by Pradeep Burugu
- 🇮 Timeline reminders — by LeslyeCream
Best existing plugin
- 🇦 Another Quick Switcher — by tadashi-aikawa
- 🇧 Better Export PDF — by l1xnan
- 🇨 Calendarium — by javalent
- 🇩 Export Image — by zhouhua
- 🇪 File Cooker — by ivaneye
- 🇬 Graphs — by DylanHojnoski
- 🇭 Homepage — by mirnovov
- 🇮 Hover Editor — by nothingislost
- 🇰 LaTeX Suite — by artisticat1
- 🇱 List Callouts — by mgmeyers
- 🇲 Local Backup — by ifgris
- 🇳 Multi Properties — by technohiker
- 🇴 Natural Language Syntax Highlighting — by artisticat1
- 🇵 Pomodoro timer plugin — by eatgrass
- 🇶 Spaced Repetition — by st3v3nmw
- 🇷 TagFolder — by vrtmrz
- 🇸 Text Format — by Benature
- 🇹 Webpage HTML Export — by KosmosisDire
Best LLM integration
- 🇦 Cannoli — by DeabLabs
- 🇧 Copilot — by logancyang
- 🇨 File Organizer 2000 — by different-ai
- 🇩 InfraNodus — by noduslabs
- 🇪 Local GPT — by pfrankov
- 🇫 Local LLM Helper — by manimohans
- 🇬 Mesh AI — by chasebank87
- 🇭 Ollama Chat — by brumik
- 🇮 Smart Composer — by glowingjade
- 🇯 Smart Connections — by brianpetro
- 🇰 Text Generator — by nhaouari
Best third-party integration
In this category we're highlighting the work of individuals and teams creating plugins that rely on other services, including paid services.
- 🇦 Are.na — by javierarce
- 🇧 Enveloppe — by Enveloppe
- 🇨 Harper — by Automattic
- 🇩 Instapaper — by Instapaper
- 🇪 Légifrance — by carnetdethese
- 🇫 Relay — by no-instructions
- 🇬 Typefully — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇭 Yanki — by kitschpatrol
Best new theme
- 🇦 Cupertino — by aaaaalexis
- 🇧 Fancy A Story — by ElsaTam
- 🇨 Halcyon — by dbarenholz
- 🇩 Lagom — by LeslyeCream
- 🇪 Minimal Edge — by Elhary
- 🇫 Prime — by rivea0
- 🇬 Underwater — by Seniblue
Best new plugin
In this category we're highlighting the work of individual developers creating standalone plugins.
- 🇦 Advanced Canvas — by Developer-Mike
- 🇧 Auto Embed — by GnoxNahte
- 🇨 Block Link Plus — by Jasper-1024
- 🇩 Chronos Timeline — by clairefro
- 🇪 Continuous Mode — by gasparschott
- 🇫 Dataview Publisher — by udus122
- 🇬 Featured Image — by johansan
- 🇭 Heatmap Tracker — by mokkiebear
- 🇮 Iconic — by gfxholo
- 🇯 Image Converter — by xRyul
- 🇰 Ink — by daledesilva
- 🇱 Lazy Loader — by alangrainger
- 🇲 Lineage — by ycnmhd
- 🇳 Note Toolbar — by chrisgurney
- 🇴 PDF++ — by RyotaUshio
- 🇵 Pixel-banner — by jparkerweb
- 🇶 Quadro — by chrisgrieser
- 🇷 SQLSeal — by h-sphere
- 🇸 Vault Explorer — by decaf-dev
- 🇹 Vertical Tabs — by oxdc
Nominations for Obsidian Gems of the Year for 2024
These are the different categories and the products nominated by
the community for the 2024 Obsidian.md Gems of the Year, an annual
tradition on Discord. Have fun investigating the favorite new and
existing complements to what, I think, is the best app to come along
since the invention of the browser.
- Best content
- Best template
- Best tool
- Best existing plugin
- Best LLM integration
- Best third-party integration
- Best new theme
- Best new plugin
Best content
- 🇦 Arabic Obsidian Crash Course — by Khaled Mohamed
- 🇧 Bag of Tips YouTube — by Bag of Tips
- 🇨 Beginners Guide Series — by Paul Dickson
- 🇩 David Hurtado Obsidian Publish site — by David Hurtado
- 🇪 Form, Function, & Fun! Obsidian Vault Tour — by CyanVoxel
- 🇫 LeanProductivity — by Sascha Kasper
- 🇬 Love Letter to Obsidian — by Andrej Karpathy
- 🇭 Marco Serafini YouTube — by Marco Serafini
- 🇮 Obsidian Observer — by Nuno Campos, TfTHacker, Theo Stowell
- 🇯 Obsidian: The King of Learning Tools — by Odysseas
- 🇰 Reflections on 4 years of Writing with Obsidian — by Junaid Rahim
- 🇱 Sébastien Dubois Blog — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇲 TTRPG Tutorials — by Josh Plunkett
- 🇳 Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management — by Zsolt Viczián
Best template
- 🇦 Automators Podcast Vault — by sylumer
- 🇧 Bag of Tips TTRPG Template Vault — by Bag of Tips
- 🇨 ChatGPT Web Clipper — by ljavuras
- 🇩 Clipper Templates — by kepano
- 🇪 Dusk Vault — by DuskWasHere
- 🇫 LifeOS for Obsidian — by quanru
- 🇬 Starter Kit — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇭 YouTube Web Clipper template — by harr
Best tool
- 🇦 Actions For Obsidian — by Carlo Zottmann
- 🇧 Browser Search Extension — by Jakob Osterberger
- 🇨 Callout Emojis — by rivea0
- 🇩 Funnel Quick Capture — by NoteSight Labs
- 🇪 Git Sync — by ViscousPot
- 🇫 Obsidian Stats — by Moritz Jung
- 🇬 Plugin Stats — by Ganessh Kumar
- 🇭 Quick Capture for Obsidian — by Pradeep Burugu
- 🇮 Timeline reminders — by LeslyeCream
Best existing plugin
- 🇦 Another Quick Switcher — by tadashi-aikawa
- 🇧 Better Export PDF — by l1xnan
- 🇨 Calendarium — by javalent
- 🇩 Export Image — by zhouhua
- 🇪 File Cooker — by ivaneye
- 🇬 Graphs — by DylanHojnoski
- 🇭 Homepage — by mirnovov
- 🇮 Hover Editor — by nothingislost
- 🇰 LaTeX Suite — by artisticat1
- 🇱 List Callouts — by mgmeyers
- 🇲 Local Backup — by ifgris
- 🇳 Multi Properties — by technohiker
- 🇴 Natural Language Syntax Highlighting — by artisticat1
- 🇵 Pomodoro timer plugin — by eatgrass
- 🇶 Spaced Repetition — by st3v3nmw
- 🇷 TagFolder — by vrtmrz
- 🇸 Text Format — by Benature
- 🇹 Webpage HTML Export — by KosmosisDire
Best LLM integration
- 🇦 Cannoli — by DeabLabs
- 🇧 Copilot — by logancyang
- 🇨 File Organizer 2000 — by different-ai
- 🇩 InfraNodus — by noduslabs
- 🇪 Local GPT — by pfrankov
- 🇫 Local LLM Helper — by manimohans
- 🇬 Mesh AI — by chasebank87
- 🇭 Ollama Chat — by brumik
- 🇮 Smart Composer — by glowingjade
- 🇯 Smart Connections — by brianpetro
- 🇰 Text Generator — by nhaouari
Best third-party integration
In this category we're highlighting the work of individuals and teams creating plugins that rely on other services, including paid services.
- 🇦 Are.na — by javierarce
- 🇧 Enveloppe — by Enveloppe
- 🇨 Harper — by Automattic
- 🇩 Instapaper — by Instapaper
- 🇪 Légifrance — by carnetdethese
- 🇫 Relay — by no-instructions
- 🇬 Typefully — by Sébastien Dubois
- 🇭 Yanki — by kitschpatrol
Best new theme
- 🇦 Cupertino — by aaaaalexis
- 🇧 Fancy A Story — by ElsaTam
- 🇨 Halcyon — by dbarenholz
- 🇩 Lagom — by LeslyeCream
- 🇪 Minimal Edge — by Elhary
- 🇫 Prime — by rivea0
- 🇬 Underwater — by Seniblue
Best new plugin
In this category we're highlighting the work of individual developers creating standalone plugins.
- 🇦 Advanced Canvas — by Developer-Mike
- 🇧 Auto Embed — by GnoxNahte
- 🇨 Block Link Plus — by Jasper-1024
- 🇩 Chronos Timeline — by clairefro
- 🇪 Continuous Mode — by gasparschott
- 🇫 Dataview Publisher — by udus122
- 🇬 Featured Image — by johansan
- 🇭 Heatmap Tracker — by mokkiebear
- 🇮 Iconic — by gfxholo
- 🇯 Image Converter — by xRyul
- 🇰 Ink — by daledesilva
- 🇱 Lazy Loader — by alangrainger
- 🇲 Lineage — by ycnmhd
- 🇳 Note Toolbar — by chrisgurney
- 🇴 PDF++ — by RyotaUshio
- 🇵 Pixel-banner — by jparkerweb
- 🇶 Quadro — by chrisgrieser
- 🇷 SQLSeal — by h-sphere
- 🇸 Vault Explorer — by decaf-dev
- 🇹 Vertical Tabs — by oxdc
I spend a lot of time on my deck. Through the years, I’ve gotten to know many of the tree rats who live in the massive old oak trees in my back yard.
Slash Page Highlights

Last year, when Robb Knight created the Slash Page website, I spent an afternoon creating a few of my own. Since then, I've periodically updated them as life has continued around me. Robb defines Slash pages as "common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like /now, /about, or /uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb."
Although some grumpy types rebel at the thought of having the same pages on their blog as others have, as is their God-given right, I happen to enjoy seeing how original different people can be as they riff on the same ideas, If you've created your own Slash pages, feel free to drop a link in the comments so others can check them out.
My Slash Page Home
Check out the links to the individual pages of you want to see the whole thing. These are a few highlights
/Interests
- Apple technology
- 📷 Photography - I love street photography the most
- 🇮🇪 🇬🇧Northen Ireland, its history and politics
- 🏃♀️Ultrarunning (as a spectator and crew member)
- 📺 British police procedurals, like Endeavour or Broadchurch
/Nope
- No, Mr. Paywall, I do not have to pay to read. I haz skillz.
- Pay TV with commercials is an oxymoron
- I don’t want to upsize, super-size or biggie size. Bruh, have you seen my waist?
- Person at my door, I don’t want to buy magazines, home security or anything else
- I want gas, not a carwash for my rusted out 2005 Camry
/Someday
- Eat dinner in New Orleans
- See assault rifles banned again
- Palestine
- Go to my Mom’s 100th birthday party
- See a woman elected US president
/Blogroll
/Save
/Feeds
/Subscriptions
| Blogs | |
|---|---|
| Joan Westerberg | $4.17 |
| Jason Kotke | $2.50 |
| Hey Dingus | $1.00 |
| Matt Langford | $1.00 |
| Flohgro | $1.00 |
| Keenan | $1.00 |
| Manuel Moreale | $1.00 |
| Numeric Citizen | $1.00 |
| | $12.67 |
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Strategies for Preserving Digital Memories

I have copies of blog posts I wrote in the 1990s for my first blog posts on GeoCities. I've lost count of how many computers I've accessed them on. I have copies of digital photos I took using a Sony Mavica camera, which used a 3.5 inch floppy to save the images. All of those songs I downloaded using Napster during its brief moment in the sun, I have all of them too. In fact, I have multiple copies of all of those memories. It's not hard to do and if you don't have a system, you should create one.
Tips for Saving Documents
The two best formats for saving text based documents are as plain text/Markdown or as PDFs. Microsoft Word might be ubiquitous, but the format changes and you are never guaranteed to be able to open old Word documents in new versions of the application and across platforms. Luckily, the ability to convert a Word document into a PDF is bulit right into macOS and Windows.
How I do convert a Microsoft Word document to PDF format? - Ask A Librarian
Use Plain Text to Future-Proof Your Writing | Writing Pursuits
Tips for Saving Photos
I have copies of my photos on an external hard drive and on three different cloud services. It's easy to set up a modern computer or phone to automatically save photos to multiple cloud services. If your photos are valuable to you, and I consider mine to be priceless, make an investment in having multiple copies.
Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Google Photos: Edit, Organize, Search, and Backup Your Photos
Transfer Photos and Videos to Amazon Photos - Amazon Customer Service
Tips for Saving Music
If you have music your purchased from an artist at a coffee shop or after a bar concert, chances are, it's not going to be on Spotify or Apple Music. If you have bootlegs collected over the years, you want find that on commercial streaming services either. To make sure you keep a copy of those important tunes regardless of what happens to your computer, put a copy of them on an external drive and a cloud drive, like Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive. If you use Apple Music, you can upload them using a special Apple service and listen to them in the cloud.
Subscribe to iTunes Match - Apple Support
Tips for Saving Memories
If you are a Mac user, I highly recommend the journaling app, Day One. When you pair Day One with the automation service IFTTT, you can use it as a record for your whole life. I save my location history, media consumption, social media entries, blog posts and my own hand written memories in Day One. You can use it to create paper version of your journal and PDF versions.
Day One Is Popular for a Reason | AppAddict
Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT | AppAddict
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Apps for Trakt
The extensible tracking service, Trakt,
for keeping up with your TV and movie watching habits has been around a
while. You can use Trakt in a browser, but It has an API that allows app
developers to incorporate the Trakt database into their products.
Recently, Trakt got a significant new feature with the introduction of
scrobbling, the automatic addition of shows watched to your personal
database from five of the largest streaming services:
- Netflix
- Max
- Hulu
- Amazon Prime
- AppleTV+
It also added scrobbling from several popular media centers and players, like Plex, Kodi and VLC
The features in the Trakt API and companion apps allow you to track what you're watching, add to lists, discover, find where to watch (via a partnership with Just Watch), see what's up next and get recommendations. Trakt has a free tier and a pro tier. I've had a pro membership for a decade. It provides a lot of value, and I've recommended it to everyone in my family. If you would like a free one-month pro trial, use this link.
Mac Apps
My current choice of apps for Trakt integration is Sequel Entertainment Database, an app that also provides lists and tracking for print and audiobooks as well as games. It is in iOS/iPadOS app that runs on Macs with Apple Silicon. There are several other well regarded apps that run natively on the Mac.
iOS Apps
I've used various iOS apps with Trakt over the years, and my favorites are:
Apps for Trakt
The extensible tracking service, Trakt,
for keeping up with your TV and movie watching habits has been around a
while. You can use Trakt in a browser, but It has an API that allows app
developers to incorporate the Trakt database into their products.
Recently, Trakt got a significant new feature with the introduction of
scrobbling, the automatic addition of shows watched to your personal
database from five of the largest streaming services:
- Netflix
- Max
- Hulu
- Amazon Prime
- AppleTV+
It also added scrobbling from several popular media centers and players, like Plex, Kodi and VLC
The features in the Trakt API and companion apps allow you to track what you're watching, add to lists, discover, find where to watch (via a partnership with Just Watch), see what's up next and get recommendations. Trakt has a free tier and a pro tier. I've had a pro membership for a decade. It provides a lot of value, and I've recommended it to everyone in my family. If you would like a free one-month pro trial, use this link.
Mac Apps
My current choice of apps for Trakt integration is Sequel Entertainment Database, an app that also provides lists and tracking for print and audiobooks as well as games. It is in iOS/iPadOS app that runs on Macs with Apple Silicon. There are several other well regarded apps that run natively on the Mac.
iOS Apps
I've used various iOS apps with Trakt over the years, and my favorites are:
Kure Beach Pier on one of NC’s many barrier islands. In the spring, when the blue fish are running, it’s so crowded with people that it’s difficult to find a spot. In the winter, at dawn is a different story.
When You'd Rather Be Somewhere Else

Lots of Americans are wishing they could spend the next four years anywhere but in the United States. Escapist fantasies are the order of the day. We know the old saw is true,"No matter where you go, there you are." There may not actually be a geographic cure for what ails us, but escapism and fantasy are what we have left. We are fully cognizant of the creeping oligarchy and fascist tendencies popping up all over the world, but we still want to get away.
If you live in one of the places I mention, you can be a spoil sport and leave a comment detailing all the things wrong with my fantasy version of your homeland if you'd like to. I know I am dealing with an idealized creation of my own imagination. I am just wishful, not naive.
First Choice - New Zealand
This is about as far away as I can get from Mar-a-Lago. It's attractive because, like most of my fellow countrymen, I only speak one language and what do you know, it happens to be the same one they speak in New Zealand. If photos tell the truth, it is a drop-dead gorgeous country. Like the US, it has a famous and spectacular long distance hiking trail, the Te Araroa, 3,000 KM of rugged beauty. Another positive factor about the culture there is that white people seem to have taken more responsibility for the historic injustices done to the Maori people than what we have. That's a big plus.
Second Choice - Ireland
I've actually been to the island of Ireland, but not the Republic. I was only able to visit Northern Ireland, the six counties that the UK still holds on to. Still, I know that the Irish Republic has a president who is a gay, half-Indian doctor. I'm giving the country a lot of credit for that. I'm also a fan of the way the Irish police themselves. They don't even call their law enforcement folks "the police." They are referred to as the Garda Síochána and they manage to keep the peace without being armed to the gills and shooting POC every 15 minutes. I don't have Irish heritage, so I hopefully won't annoy anyone with the typical American plastic paddy act. There are a lot of tech companies there, so I'd even be able to contribute to the economy.
Third Choice - Pitcairn Island
My ultimate Fantasy get away is the tiny British Island in the Pacific Ocean where the inhabitants are mostly descendants of nine British HMS Bounty mutineers and twelve Tahitian women. There are about 35 permanent inhabitants. Most of the people who live there are Seventh Day Adventists and while I am not religious, I am well acquainted with the Adventist Church. I like their emphasis on health and I appreciate the way they decided to ignore some of the changes other Christians made to their religion, like arbitrarily changing the day or worship just to make the pagans happy. I'd gladly hang out on a tiny island far away to escape MAGA for four years.
It takes a lot to motivate me to want to leave North Carolina, my lifelong home. We are not looking forward to the continuation of the current timeline. I'm approaching this from a massively privileged position as a straight, white, male, middle-class veteran. My brothers and sisters who are POC, LBGT or poor face all kinds of discrimination, harassment and potentially the loss of health insurance, medical care and the removal of any social safety net. It is going to suck so bad.
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Accountability is the Grown Up Name for Cancel Culture

Well Snoop Dogg has sure gone and pissed of a bunch of people. Including me. I don't know when holding people accountable for their behavior became something that the self-proclaimed moral majority disagreed with. They made up a pejorative for it, because of course they did. Accountability is now known as cancel culture and it is a certified Bad Thing that the meanies on the left do to people who...what? Oh, they hold people accountable for sexual harassment, assault, racism, hypocrisy, lying and general douche-baggery. Why this upsets right-wingers is obvious. They don't like being held accountable. They truly believe there to be some special quality they hold that should let them blithely escape judgment when what they really need more than anything is a great big dose of it.
Oh, do let me remind you that these opponents of cancel culture have a huge list of people and corporations they's tried to cancel for the stupidest of reasons:
- Starbucks for supposedly Satanic coffee cups
- Nike because they made a Colin Kaepernick commercial
- Carhartt because they required their workers to get COVID-19
It’s Not “Cancel Culture;” It’s “Accountability Culture”
16 White Celebs Who Made The #Canceled List
List of things Conservatives have "canceled" - TheAlmightyGuru
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Using Obsidian and Drafts Together
When using a Mac for writing, I'm all in on the notes app Obsidian, a plain text/Markdown editor.
With it, I use various plugins to create a personalized workspace that
provides me with all the tools I want. I use
- The editing toolbar
- Better word count
- Reading lever indicator
- Language Tool, a freemium grammar checker
- Paste URL into selection
On iOS, however, I prefer to write using Drafts, also a plain text tool, but one designed as a temporary holding spot until the text is moved to its final home. Drafts has an online directory where you can find extensions that add to its capabilities, making it useful with various apps, not just Obsidian. I use it with Things 3, Google, Dropbox, Google Drive, Day One, Gmail and ChatGPT. There are also extensions to format Markdown and for other text manipulation actions.
My problem with Obsidian on iOS is that although the program now opens much quicker than it used to, it is slower than I'd like to sync, even though I am a paid Obsidian sync user. It's also prone to crashing and restarting if I try to do certain things while it's syncing. Sometimes, if I've started my daily note on my Mac and I if try to open it on my phone before the sync finishes, my existing content gets overwritten or a duplicate file is created. To avoid creating content on the phone with Obsidian. I just use it as reference tool.
Both Obsidian and Drafts are universal apps. Anything you create on one hardware platform eventually becomes available on all platforms, Mac and iOS. Here are my different use cases for Drafts with Obsidian.
Send to Obsidian (link)
This action creates a new note in the inbox of my vault with the contents of the Draft. I only use one vault, but if I used more than one, I could use different versions of this Drafts extension to send notes to different vaults.
Append to Daily Note (link)
If I have information in a Draft that I want to add to my daily note, this extension appends the information to the bottom of the note verbatim. It's best not to run the extension until after opening Obsidian for iOS and letting it sync.
Append to Daily Note With Time and Place (link)
This action adds a time stamp and the GPS coordinates to the text appended to the bottom of my Daily Note. I use this a lot when traveling.
Notes Created from Vivaldi with an Apple Shortcut (link)
The Obsidian web clipper works with Safari but not other browsers. I use a shortcut available through the sharesheet to send web pages as Markdown files to Drafts. Then I can send them on to Obsidian, from my phone if I need to, or I can just wait until I am back at my Mac.
Using Obsidian and Drafts Together
When using a Mac for writing, I'm all in on the notes app Obsidian, a plain text/Markdown editor.
With it, I use various plugins to create a personalized workspace that
provides me with all the tools I want. I use
- The editing toolbar
- Better word count
- Reading lever indicator
- Language Tool, a freemium grammar checker
- Paste URL into selection
On iOS, however, I prefer to write using Drafts, also a plain text tool, but one designed as a temporary holding spot until the text is moved to its final home. Drafts has an online directory where you can find extensions that add to its capabilities, making it useful with various apps, not just Obsidian. I use it with Things 3, Google, Dropbox, Google Drive, Day One, Gmail and ChatGPT. There are also extensions to format Markdown and for other text manipulation actions.
My problem with Obsidian on iOS is that although the program now opens much quicker than it used to, it is slower than I'd like to sync, even though I am a paid Obsidian sync user. It's also prone to crashing and restarting if I try to do certain things while it's syncing. Sometimes, if I've started my daily note on my Mac and I if try to open it on my phone before the sync finishes, my existing content gets overwritten or a duplicate file is created. To avoid creating content on the phone with Obsidian. I just use it as reference tool.
Both Obsidian and Drafts are universal apps. Anything you create on one hardware platform eventually becomes available on all platforms, Mac and iOS. Here are my different use cases for Drafts with Obsidian.
Send to Obsidian (link)
This action creates a new note in the inbox of my vault with the contents of the Draft. I only use one vault, but if I used more than one, I could use different versions of this Drafts extension to send notes to different vaults.
Append to Daily Note (link)
If I have information in a Draft that I want to add to my daily note, this extension appends the information to the bottom of the note verbatim. It's best not to run the extension until after opening Obsidian for iOS and letting it sync.
Append to Daily Note With Time and Place (link)
This action adds a time stamp and the GPS coordinates to the text appended to the bottom of my Daily Note. I use this a lot when traveling.
Notes Created from Vivaldi with an Apple Shortcut (link)
The Obsidian web clipper works with Safari but not other browsers. I use a shortcut available through the sharesheet to send web pages as Markdown files to Drafts. Then I can send them on to Obsidian, from my phone if I need to, or I can just wait until I am back at my Mac.
When you plan a photography trip and the weather robs you of your golden hour opportunities, you can resort to getting shots like this. Wilmington, NC
The Problem With Independent Thinking

In polite company, independent thinking is frowned upon. The people in charge of an organization like to be the ones who define what things mean. Questioning or analyzing those definitions is frowned up. It's akin to insubordination. The larger the organization is, the more entrenched the official version of the truth becomes, and the sin of asking “why” can be considered radical or unpatriotic. Take the role of the US military, for example. You know you've heard that they "fight for our freedom." After all, freedom isn't free, right?
Now, tell me how exactly rice farmers from Vietnam threatened the freedom of the United States in the 60s and early 70s. How they threatened it so much that the US had to sacrifice the lives of 58,220 service members. The majority of them were draftees forced to fight under penalty of law. Or, tell me how Iraq threatened our freedom because 19 Saudi Arabians flew planes into buildings in the US. If you ask those questions out loud, you are going to get labeled. If you teach US history in a public school, you will get fired. The safest thing to do is accept the narrative and wave the flag.
There is a sizable portion of white people in the US who believe we don't need programs to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion. They believe racism is a thing of the past, that there is no need for the voting rights act and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself would be against affirmative action. They believe this in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In my home state of North Carolina, as soon as part of the voting rights act was overturned by Supreme Court conservatives, the Republican Party crafted a bill. That bill, said the judge who overturned it, was designed with surgical precision to keep as many black people from voting as possible.
We should know, given quantifiable numbers like the achievement gap in public schools, the pay gap between white workers and their non-white counterparts and the incarceration rates for different races, all of which favor white people, harming everyone else, that a problem exists. Unfortunately, most white people, as indicated by the way they vote, believe the issue isn't racism, but that POC are...what? Well, they won't come out and say it unless they know you are a member of their club, but obviously, they think the issue is inferiority, laziness and entitlement. The fault doesn't lie with the in-group who've run this country for over 400 years. It lies with the people who only got something close to equal rights in my lifetime.
Once again, don't go into the company of powerful people, particularly white ones, and point out the obviousness of systemic racism. They have a label for that, “identity politics.” When you think independently of the narrative that people are comfortable with, you make them uncomfortable and based on my experience, that is a grave sin. It's certainly not polite. It's "discussing politics." It's frowned upon. Furthermore, it will get you fired. They'll say it was because of something else, but in the end, speaking truth to power is risky business.
Of course, today's majority reserves a spectacularly evil brand of groupthink to demonize their favorite victims, the people in the LGBT community. It's not a new community. They've been with us for all of recorded history, but only in the past few years have they come close to having the rights they deserve. There is no logic in denying them rights. In fact, society harms itself by persecuting them. One of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Alan Turing, credited with saving 20 million lives in World War Two by cracking Nazi codes that gave the allies the information they needed to defeat Germany, died by suicide. He was chemically castrated by the British government for being homosexual. If you are capable of thinking independently of popular opinion, you see bullshit for what it is.
To be anti-war, anti-racist and anti-hate you have to ask questions that make people uncomfortable because humanity in the 21st century is so warped that being a war - loving hate filled bigot is normal and opposing it is radical.
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton and The Truth in 2025

Because of the abdication of corporate media like the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News and others, many people fear that the traditional role of the free press in the US to hold the power structure accountable is coming to an end. Additionally, the end of fact checking on the largest social media sites portends a future where the truth is undervalued.Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation are attacking Wikipedia and even individual contributors. If you have the disk space, I encourage you to download the entire Wikipedia archive before the right wing destroys it.
One of the articles I'm afraid of losing to the fascists is about Fred Hampton, a 21-year old African-American organizer from Chicago who was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago Police Department, who fired more than 100 unanswered shots into the apartment where Hampton and other so called radicals were sleeping. The police were photographed grinning as they brought his bullet riddled body out to the street.
The raid was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who feared that Hampton was so intelligent, so charismatic and such a natural leader that he was capable of organizing a multi-racial movement to overthrow the government of the United States. Remember, this was a 21-year old man. In a 1982 trial, Hampton's family sued the Chicago PD and the FBI. They won the equivalent of a multi-million dollar judgment. It was revealed during the trial from COINTELPRO documents and other sources that Hampton's death at the hands of the police department was a planned assassination at the urging of the FBI.
Fred Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all." This is as true in 2025 as it was in 1969. It was revealed this week that the first mass roundup of undocumented immigrants is scheduled to happen the day after Trump in inaugurated. The location is Chicago.
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SnapMotion - High Quality Image Captures from Video, Made Easy
Trying to capture high-quality images from a video can be a frustrating and time-consuming ordeal, requiring the use of multiple apps , the limitations of your screenshot utility, inexact dimensions and extra post-production work. Or you could just use SnapMotion from developer Needed Apps.. SnapMotion can load and play any video format compatible with Apple's QuickTime Player: MPEG-4, HEVC and MPEG-2, MPEG-4, HEVC, H.264, H.263, H.261, Apple Pro Res, DV, Motion JPEG. It can easily handle 4K and 8K videos without bogging down.
To use the app, you can load a video from one of three sources:
- A file on your drive
- A video in your photos library
- A video from a URL, if the site allows it. The promotional material claims that SnapMotion works with YouTube URLs, but in testing, that turned out not to be accurate. Still, You can use an app like Downie to easily download about any video you can access online.
You can scrub through the video until you find the scene you want to capture as a still image, Then you can advance in increments as small as one frame at the time until you find the exact image you want. If our prefer, you can use the batch capture feature to generate thousands of images, which you can then evaluate individually.
SnapMotion captures images in four formats: PNG, JPEG, TIFF and HEIF. You can adjust the DPI up or down from the default of 72. If your source video contains metadata, you can elect to import that along with your images.
You can download a free trial of SnapMotion on the developer's website. It is also available for purchase on the Mac App Store for $8.99. Purchasing it from the App Store also provides you with access to the iPad and iPhone version. If you have a Setapp subscription, it is included.
SnapMotion - High Quality Image Captures from Video, Made Easy
Trying to capture high-quality images from a video can be a frustrating and time-consuming ordeal, requiring the use of multiple apps , the limitations of your screenshot utility, inexact dimensions and extra post-production work. Or you could just use SnapMotion from developer Needed Apps.. SnapMotion can load and play any video format compatible with Apple's QuickTime Player: MPEG-4, HEVC and MPEG-2, MPEG-4, HEVC, H.264, H.263, H.261, Apple Pro Res, DV, Motion JPEG. It can easily handle 4K and 8K videos without bogging down.
To use the app, you can load a video from one of three sources:
- A file on your drive
- A video in your photos library
- A video from a URL, if the site allows it. The promotional material claims that SnapMotion works with YouTube URLs, but in testing, that turned out not to be accurate. Still, You can use an app like Downie to easily download about any video you can access online.
You can scrub through the video until you find the scene you want to capture as a still image, Then you can advance in increments as small as one frame at the time until you find the exact image you want. If our prefer, you can use the batch capture feature to generate thousands of images, which you can then evaluate individually.
SnapMotion captures images in four formats: PNG, JPEG, TIFF and HEIF. You can adjust the DPI up or down from the default of 72. If your source video contains metadata, you can elect to import that along with your images.
You can download a free trial of SnapMotion on the developer's website. It is also available for purchase on the Mac App Store for $8.99. Purchasing it from the App Store also provides you with access to the iPad and iPhone version. If you have a Setapp subscription, it is included.
This Week's Bookmarks: 1000 Greatest Movies, Dinosaurs, An Epic Story, Terms of Service Nightmares, Worst Healthcare Ripoffs, What the Japanese Get Right, Amazing Fire Pictures

TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films (by Ranking 1-1000) - I don't know why this site, They Shoot Pictures Don't They, wasn't on my radar. It is now, but be warned. It's a rabit hole if you like movies.
What Dinosaurs Were Really Like - YouTube - Take it from me, if you have access to any kids between. the ages of 4-10, show them this short video. Get ready for an outraged reaction and a lot of questions.
The Passengers a Norwegian Cruise Ship Left Behind - Do you like epic stories? Read this then. It's an epic story
ToS about - We all just click through those terms of service screens on apps and websites to get to where we want to go, but someone actually read them all and graded them. Unsurprisingly they found that we routinely give up our rights for the sake of convenience.
2024 Shkreli Awards - Welcome to the 8th annual Shkreli Awards, the Lown Institute's top ten list of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare, named for the infamous "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli.
Lifestyle: 33 Ways To Improve Your Life, Japanese Style | The Journal | MR PORTER - Here, a few Japanese experts (and experts on Japan) divulge some ideas on what we can learn from life in the Japanese capital, and beyond.
Los Angeles wildfires: in pictures - BBC News - I'm not one to watch television news, but I do love to see good photojournalism. I've got nothing but praise for the BBC photographers.
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Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over?

When playing the old parlor game, "Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over," I always emphatically stress that I like the way my life is now, so I wouldn't change a thing. I fear the butterfly effect might get me. It could cause me to miss meeting Wonder Woman or have me choose a career in some other field that I might have loved less than the mostly great time I've had working in technology. That's a pretty boring answer when you are trying to kill time on a camping trip or a long car ride, so for the sake of not being a killjoy, I'll come up with a few "maybes".
That one time I voted for a Republican
When I lived with my Mom and step-dad in the early to mid-70s, politics was discussed with some frequency, mostly registering disgust with Richard Nixon and NC senator Jess Helms. During my freshman years of high school, I moved to my uncle's farm. Politics was never discussed there — ever. We discussed the likelihood of rain, who shot J.R on Dallas and what time the next football game was coming on. I turned 18 in 1983 and the following year I was eligible to vote in the election. I'd joined the military, and although I read the paper, I still didn't have strong political feelings, so when I went to the polls, I cast my ballot carelessly. When I finally did get some political sensibility, I wanted a time machine ride to go recast that vote, but it was too late.
The time I married a woman I met in rehab
I was never a successful drinker. The first time I tried to quit, I was 22. I'd been convicted of drinking and driving and to keep my job working for the state, I volunteered to go to rehab (at a place that is now a funeral home.) While I was there, I met a woman ten years older than me who was also in treatment. She liked me, and I liked being liked. I moved in with her after spending a single weekend together. Look, this woman was so evil, that when we were together, we refinanced our house. She was a legal secretary and did all the paperwork. When we inevitably split up, I found out that while I had signed the mortgage and was responsible for the loan, she'd left my name off the deed to the house. I had no leverage to make her take my name off the mortgage. My name stayed on it for over 20 years — until the bank finally foreclosed and gave me a big old frowny face on my credit report.
School Stuff
Although my mother probably is still holding on to hope, I never went to college. I never wanted to, and I'm not sorry one bit that I didn't. That is my story, and I am sticking to it. For the sake of contributing to the conversation though, I suppose if I had to pick a major, with the benefit of hindsight, I'd have probably gone with journalism. It's a low paying job with long hours. The people who practice it get little respect. Still, I've always loved writing. Crafting informative, well-researched blog posts on subjects I'm passionate about takes me to my happy place. I did work as a technical writer and editor for a few years at the same time my brother and sister, both graduates of our state's flagship university, were doing the same thing. Funny how life works.
Dad Stuff
I raised three kids. I'll spare you the details because it gets confusing, but if you really want to put the puzzle together, read The Fourth Time is a Charm. The kids were all different, as people tend to be. My parents were 17 when I was born. I was 18 when my son was born. My daughter came along less than two years later. Being a teenage parent didn't ruin anyone's life. I wouldn't change that. What I would change is the number of parent-teacher conferences I went to, the number of soccer games and swimming practices attended and things like that. I wish I'd said “maybe” a lot less to them and “yes” a lot more. My youngest daughter, who I raised from age six into adulthood and I have had a difficult time lately. Her mom died of cancer three years after we were divorced, and it has been hard for her. There is no guidebook for complicated relationships like ours. I don't know exactly what I would do differently with her, if given the chance, but I'd come up with something.
So there you have it. Those are my biggest regrets. None of them are the cause of lifelong trauma. Hopefully, I've made up for that errant vote. I'll count that unfortunate marriage as just practice. I live a comfortable life and I get to write all I want these days, so missing school didn't hurt. The great relationships I have with my two oldest kids and Wonder Woman's two daughters are a true source of happiness. The rocky time with my youngest still has time to heal.
Thanks for reading.
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Old Fashioned #FollowFriday - ShoutOuts today for a few Micro.bloggers and some others #FollowFriday to @tracydurnell @dansmock @hiro@social.lol @jarunmb@techhub.social @dennyhenke@social.coop
Old Fashioned #FollowFriday Post
One of my favorite activities is reading blog posts every night on my iPad before I go to sleep. I've got a feed built that contains nothing but different writers I've discovered on the IndieWeb. Here are a few to check out. Subscribe to their feeds and follow them on social media.
Beardy Guy Musings: Posts - by Denny Henke aka Beardy Star Stuff - Denny is a deeply principled guy who I appreciate for the times when he's gotten me to look at my own attitudes over privilege and consumption.
The Hiro Report - by Hiro - Hiro is active on the same Mastodon server as I am, social.lol. He also writes a weekly newsletter that comes out every Sunday night exactly at 8:00 PM. I'm usually reading it one minute later. It contains tips on tech, gadgets and more - always thoughtfully described .
jarunmb.com - by mb - This blogger and I have much in common, Gen X tech guys trapped in a Windows world at work, but loving Apple hardware on out own time. He's smart and engaging, a good writer who injects some personality into everything he puts online.
Dan Smock - I first encountered Dan when he commented on a blog post I wrote about the cushy job Army job I had at Ft. Hood back in the 80s. A fellow vet who shares most of my own feelings about the state of the US in 2025, Dan has well thought out insights on a great many things, including tech. I enjoy every encounter with him.
Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden – Thinking and Learning In Public - Tracy Durnell is a writer/blogger/cool person who lives in Seattle. When I was investigating starting a blog, she is one of the people who inspired me through some of her observations on the experience. Every time she's commented on something I've written, I've felt like rookie on a big league ball team.
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Quick Tips for App Installation Using Hazel
In this post, I show you how to automate the installation of Mac apps in the two post popular formats ZIP and DMG, so that all you have to do is download a file from a developer's website and with no further action from you, the app will end up in your Applications folder just like if you'd downloaded it from the App Store.
Typically, when you download a Mac app from a developer's website, it will come in one of three formats
- ZIP Archive
- DMG Disk Image
- PKG - Package Installer (requires manual installation)
You can automate the installation of ZIP archives and DMG dish images with Hazel and a ninety-nine cent app from the Mac App Store.
DMGs
The app that works best for me is RapiDMG. When you make RapiDMG your default app for opening disk images, double-clicking on the file mounts the disk image files, extracts the application contained in it to the Applications folder, deletes the DMG (if that is your preference) and then highlights your new installed app in the finder. To automate it, create the following rule in Hazel for your downloads folder.
ZIP Archives
You don't need any additional software to extract and move applications. Everything is built into Hazel. You'll need to add two rules for your downloads folder. The first will extract the app from the archive. The second rule will move it to the Applications folder.
Quick Tips for App Installation Using Hazel
In this post, I show you how to automate the installation of Mac apps in the two post popular formats ZIP and DMG, so that all you have to do is download a file from a developer's website and with no further action from you, the app will end up in your Applications folder just like if you'd downloaded it from the App Store.
Typically, when you download a Mac app from a developer's website, it will come in one of three formats
- ZIP Archive
- DMG Disk Image
- PKG - Package Installer (requires manual installation)
You can automate the installation of ZIP archives and DMG dish images with Hazel and a ninety-nine cent app from the Mac App Store.
DMGs
The app that works best for me is RapiDMG. When you make RapiDMG your default app for opening disk images, double-clicking on the file mounts the disk image files, extracts the application contained in it to the Applications folder, deletes the DMG (if that is your preference) and then highlights your new installed app in the finder. To automate it, create the following rule in Hazel for your downloads folder.
ZIP Archives
You don't need any additional software to extract and move applications. Everything is built into Hazel. You'll need to add two rules for your downloads folder. The first will extract the app from the archive. The second rule will move it to the Applications folder.
Facescreen - Useful Add-on for Screencasting and Presentations
I often have to create screen recordings on my job to distribute
to the people I support for tutorials. Occasionally I do screen sharing
through Microsoft Teams when conducting training. Facescreen,
a utility from developer Ram Patra, provides a useful complement to
these use cases. It adds a feed from my webcam with a small configurable
view of my face to personalize the video. In addition to the image,
Facescreen also lets me add text, such as my email or a website related
to the subject of the tutorial or training. It's a nice professional
touch.
Facescreen, like other apps from this developer, lets you customize almost every element of what is displayed.
Image Adjustments
- Shape
- Aspect
- Orientation
- Size
- Zoom
- Color
- Mirror option
Text Adjustments
- Font
- Size
- Color
- Background color
- Radius
- Padding
You have the option to run Facescreen as a login item and to customize keyboard shortcuts to show and hide the webcam image, toggle the text and adjust the size of the image.
More information on Facescreen is available at its website. Facescreen costs $4.99. It's a one-time purchase which includes all updates. It will soon be available on Setapp. Although there is not a free trial, the developer has a no questions asked money-back guarantee. For more presentation help from the developer, check out Presentify.
Facescreen - Useful Add-on for Screencasting and Presentations
I often have to create screen recordings on my job to distribute
to the people I support for tutorials. Occasionally I do screen sharing
through Microsoft Teams when conducting training. Facescreen,
a utility from developer Ram Patra, provides a useful complement to
these use cases. It adds a feed from my webcam with a small configurable
view of my face to personalize the video. In addition to the image,
Facescreen also lets me add text, such as my email or a website related
to the subject of the tutorial or training. It's a nice professional
touch.
Facescreen, like other apps from this developer, lets you customize almost every element of what is displayed.
Image Adjustments
- Shape
- Aspect
- Orientation
- Size
- Zoom
- Color
- Mirror option
Text Adjustments
- Font
- Size
- Color
- Background color
- Radius
- Padding
You have the option to run Facescreen as a login item and to customize keyboard shortcuts to show and hide the webcam image, toggle the text and adjust the size of the image.
More information on Facescreen is available at its website. Facescreen costs $4.99. It's a one-time purchase which includes all updates. It will soon be available on Setapp. Although there is not a free trial, the developer has a no questions asked money-back guarantee. For more presentation help from the developer, check out Presentify.
This morning’s sunrise comes to you from Carolina Beach, located on a barrier island near Wilmington.
Driving

I used to drive for hours a day. My office was 30 miles from my home, much of it over two-lane country roads teeming with school buses. The first year I had that job, I drove through Ft. Bragg but that came to a sudden and scary stop on September 11, 2001. During the day, I often traveled between schools spread out over the large rural county that employed me. I spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I was once a big NPR fan, but they had a habit of playing clips of Mitch McConnell speaking and by 2008, I couldn't take his voice anymore. Finally, the Obama stimulus package from his first term kicked in and a good portion of my commute happened on multi-lane limited access roads.
I was a farm kid. I learned to drive in a 1976 Ford Ranger pickup on a hog farm in Johnston County, NC. By the time I took driver's education in high school, I could operate several kinds of tractors, including a vintage International Farmall and an even older Allis Chalmers. We had flatbed truck from the fifties named Spot and other vehicles in which we always left the keys. The actual acquisition of my state issued driver's license was delayed by my first run-in with the legal system. I got arrested for drunk driving when I was 15, BEFORE I had a license. That should have been a sign that I wasn't cut out for a relationship with Demon Rum.
In the Army I got to drive lots of things I only dreamed of as a kid. I've driven several different kinds of armored personnel carriers, an M1 tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle and the classic Army Jeep (we called the "Quarter Tons") that were replaced by HUMVEEs by the time my service ended.
The loneliest time of my life was when my first marriage split up. My ex moved from NC to PA with our two children. It was an almost 900-mile round trip that I drove on as many weekends as I could manage in a stick-shift Nissan Sentra with no radio and no AC. I couldn't afford to stop and eat along the way and I often made the drive on Friday night after working the whole day. Traveling on Interstate 95 still brings back those memories. After just a few years, the kids came to live with me and I didn't have to make that horrible lonely trip any more.
After that, the longest drive we made was when I'd take them to see their Nana, my mom, who lives at the coast. We made the trip in a variety of cheap cars over the years ranging from a $500 Chevette to Dodge Caravan I bought with a loan at 18% interest. My youngest was prone to car sickness and we would cheerfully point out to her all the spots where we had to stop for her to get sick over the years. Mom still lives in the same town today and I'm traveling the same roads to see, but Wonder Woman took over the driving a few years ago, so I have it easy now in the passenger where I might occasionally sneak a nap. Fortunately, I don't have to drive disposable cars any more either.
When I go visit my dad, who lives in the next county, I will sometimes accompany him when he takes my step-mother for her daily ride. She has severe memory issues and only gets pleasure from a few things anymore. One of them is riding slowly through the farm country and watching the cycle of the crops grown in our area: cotton, tobacco. corn, soybeans and grain. Occasionally someone will get a wild hair and plant sweet potatoes or peanuts or best of all, a huge field of sunflowers. She announces that it's time for her ride, by picking up her purse and standing in front of Dad, who always just gets his keys and heads with her towards their car. If I'm there, I climb in the back seat and go along.
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Expert Guide on How To Win an Argument on the Internet

Just for the hell of it today, I searched for "how to win an argument on the Internet." Let me be clear. This is not something I do. Hardly ever. Unless someone really needs correcting. Or I'm grouchy. But only then. For one thing, I simply do not have the emotional energy to argue with anyone over anything, on or off the Internet on most days. I don't know if you've noticed, but being alive in 2025 is exhausting. Come January 20th, it will be even more so.
I conducted this search today strictly for the lolz. I wanted to see if anyone could seriously write an article to answer this question in a studied, calm and professional manner. If I was a reporter who caught an assignment to write a serious article about how to fight with a computer, I would quit on the spot because I have worked for crazy people before, and I did not like it.
Of course, I did find such an article, and I am including it here for you to marvel at.
How to Win an Argument Online: 7 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
I found a much better Reddit thread on the always helpful sub, r/UnethicalProLifeTips containing the kind of help I was envisioning. It advises you to misstate facts when arguing so that your opponent feels obligated to correct you. Let's say you are disputing what level of hell Donald Trump will be assigned to when the syphilis finally kills him. You should mention something about his 36 felony convictions so that the MAGAt you're fighting with has to say, "That's a lie. HE only had 34 felony convictions!"
I can tell the person who wrote this article is a truly experienced Internet debater because they correctly cited Rule Number Four

- AT SOME POINT IN TIME, CLAIM THE OTHER PERSON IS A NAZI. Every, and I repeat EVERY Internet argument should involve at least one comparison to either Hitler or the Nazis. This is one of the most basic requirements of an average Internet debate, and although ignorant outsiders may find it silly to compare a person arguing on the Internet with an individual responsible for the execution of millions, this action represents one of the most traditional pillars of every online debate
How to Win Any Argument On the Internet
The final puzzle piece discovered in my research, has an easy to follow 10 point plan
- You don’t have to be right. You just have to make your opponent feel like they’ve lost.
- Never argue with an eloquent debater.
- Never argue in a room where the crowd is already dead set against you, and is allowed to be as loud as they want to be, and whenever they want to be.
- Never argue with someone who’s a certified expert on the topic you’re about to argue about.
- Never argue with someone who is knowledgeable but never gets flustered.
- When trying to appeal to a crowd. Don’t worry about the facts. Appeal to their basest emotions, and their deepest fears. Remember, it’s not a lie if it’s 20% true.
- Make the crowd chuckle at your opponent. Make sure the crowd doesn’t perceive your opponent as a human being with feelings, care, and emotions.
- If you get the slightest of feeling you are being attacked by your opponent for whatever reasons. Make sure you make personal attacks that sound like zingers even though they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the current argument. But you have to use this as a tactical weapon to divert from the topic of discussion. And not overdo it, or seem desperate when you do it.
- Don’t ever allow your opponent to get inside your skin. You might be losing your shit inside. But you have to be absolutely calm on the exterior.
- If they catch you in a lie. Use false equivalence. Use it as often as you can.
How to win an argument online - Quora
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Disk Drill Revisited - Recovering 87K Files from a Drive That Finder Could Not Read
I first wrote about Disk Drill several months ago. The review is below. I recently had a chance to put the paid version of the data recovery tools to work in a real-world situation. I was presented with a 2TB NTFS formatted drive that would mount on my Mac, but displayed the message "Drive not available" and showed no files structure in the Finder. The drive belonged to a relative who lost access to her cloud account when switching jobs and ended up with only one copy of her files from a 20-year career - on a bad drive.
Disk Drill scanned the drive, and it was able to see files on it. It wanted me to make a byte for byte copy, but I didn't have another 2TB drive on hand. I had two 1TB hard drives and a dual drive bay, though. I used the Mac disk utility to combine the two physical drives into one logical drive and tried to initiate the copy again, but still got a message that the drive was too small. Since I knew that there was less than 100 GB of actual data on the drive, I was able to adjust the size of the number of bytes to be copied and the backup started. Although data seemed to be moving quickly, the progress indicator said the backup would take 28 hours. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Rather than doing a byte for byte copy, which also includes unused space, I elected to Disk Drill's recovery option instead. I initiated it and began to copy files, sometimes quickly and at other times seeming to stop. I got messages about the disk having physical damage, but the program never quit. After about 90 minutes, I had 86K files recovered.
I did not have to pay the full retail price to use the recovery tools because the app is available as part of Setapp, a $10 a month subscription that gives you unlimited access to hundreds of software titles.
Original Review
Disk Drill 5 by Cleverfiles is marketed as data recovery software to retrieve lost files from internal and external drive media as well as iPhone, iPad and Android storage. Its website goes into considerable detail on its ease of use, its power and its ability to recover files. The free product allows you to preview what data is recoverable, but it takes the $89 paid product to actually recover your data using its full suite of tools. There are some free recovery options too, but they require you to implement some (included) tools before use.
Free Tools
Even if you aren't in need of data recovery, however, Disk Drill
is a worthy download because of the bundle of free tools it includes:
Disk Health
Free S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitoring Stays
Alert for Any Potential Disk Issues. It works on both internal and
external drives.
Mac Cleanup
Analyze Disk Space, Locate Unused
Files and Space Hogs, Free Up Your Storage Effortlessly.
Duplicate Finder
Easily Find and Remove Duplicate
File Locations on Your Drive.
Recovery Drive
Create Your own Bootable USB Drive
for Free Mac OS X Data Recovery.
Data Protection
Protect Your Data with Recovery
Vault or Guaranteed Recovery. Recover it for Free.
Data Backup
Create Byte-to-byte Disk &
Partition Backups for Future Mac OS X Recovery. In my testing of this
feature on the internal hard drive of an M3 iMac, Disk Drill said "This
drive is encrypted with the Apple M1/2 Security Chip. You can still back
it up into a byte-to-byte disk image, but it probably won't be
recoverable." This leads me to believe that a product like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
is better suited for the task. Disk Drill did fine, however, making a
copy of a 500GB external disk.
You can download all of these tools for free from Cleverfiles.
Disk Drill Revisited - Recovering 87K Files from a Drive That Finder Could Not Read
I first wrote about Disk Drill several months ago. The review is below. I recently had a chance to put the paid version of the data recovery tools to work in a real-world situation. I was presented with a 2TB NTFS formatted drive that would mount on my Mac, but displayed the message "Drive not available" and showed no files structure in the Finder. The drive belonged to a relative who lost access to her cloud account when switching jobs and ended up with only one copy of her files from a 20-year career - on a bad drive.
Disk Drill scanned the drive, and it was able to see files on it. It wanted me to make a byte for byte copy, but I didn't have another 2TB drive on hand. I had two 1TB hard drives and a dual drive bay, though. I used the Mac disk utility to combine the two physical drives into one logical drive and tried to initiate the copy again, but still got a message that the drive was too small. Since I knew that there was less than 100 GB of actual data on the drive, I was able to adjust the size of the number of bytes to be copied and the backup started. Although data seemed to be moving quickly, the progress indicator said the backup would take 28 hours. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Rather than doing a byte for byte copy, which also includes unused space, I elected to Disk Drill's recovery option instead. I initiated it and began to copy files, sometimes quickly and at other times seeming to stop. I got messages about the disk having physical damage, but the program never quit. After about 90 minutes, I had 86K files recovered.
I did not have to pay the full retail price to use the recovery tools because the app is available as part of Setapp, a $10 a month subscription that gives you unlimited access to hundreds of software titles.
Original Review
Disk Drill 5 by Cleverfiles is marketed as data recovery software to retrieve lost files from internal and external drive media as well as iPhone, iPad and Android storage. Its website goes into considerable detail on its ease of use, its power and its ability to recover files. The free product allows you to preview what data is recoverable, but it takes the $89 paid product to actually recover your data using its full suite of tools. There are some free recovery options too, but they require you to implement some (included) tools before use.
Free Tools
Even if you aren't in need of data recovery, however, Disk Drill
is a worthy download because of the bundle of free tools it includes:
Disk Health
Free S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitoring Stays
Alert for Any Potential Disk Issues. It works on both internal and
external drives.
Mac Cleanup
Analyze Disk Space, Locate Unused
Files and Space Hogs, Free Up Your Storage Effortlessly.
Duplicate Finder
Easily Find and Remove Duplicate
File Locations on Your Drive.
Recovery Drive
Create Your own Bootable USB Drive
for Free Mac OS X Data Recovery.
Data Protection
Protect Your Data with Recovery
Vault or Guaranteed Recovery. Recover it for Free.
Data Backup
Create Byte-to-byte Disk &
Partition Backups for Future Mac OS X Recovery. In my testing of this
feature on the internal hard drive of an M3 iMac, Disk Drill said "This
drive is encrypted with the Apple M1/2 Security Chip. You can still back
it up into a byte-to-byte disk image, but it probably won't be
recoverable." This leads me to believe that a product like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
is better suited for the task. Disk Drill did fine, however, making a
copy of a 500GB external disk.
You can download all of these tools for free from Cleverfiles.
What I'm Using on Reddit in 2025
This repost from my Obsidian blog got a lot of play on Reddit
You can absolutely waste some of your wild and precious life if you start doomscrolling in the wrong places on Reddit. Used wisely, however, Reddit can provide you with information on just about anything you are interested in. If you use it wisely and in accordance with the peculiar culture of the site, you can also make people curious enough about what you are up to in your other web endeavors, if you write about topics that Redditors are interested in.
I tend to frequent subreddits that mostly pertain to technology and the federated social media these days. Here are my current favorites.
r/MacApps
This is where I spend the most time. The mods of this sub were cool enough to add a link to AppAddict in the sidebar after I made an effort to cross post my reviews in their entirety every day for a few months. I only link back to my blog in posts I make if I am answering questions about an app or making recommendations.
r/ObsidianMD
Aside from all the meaningless pictures of people's graphs, this sub is an excellent place to find out about new plugins, new workflows and new use cases for what I think is the best app since the invention of the browser
r/macOS
This sub is huge with over 400K members. I am a mod here, but don't post much. It's not the friendliest community. There is a lot of one-upping going on and you can see the neck-beards doing their neck-beard things, but if you overlook all that, you can learn a lot.
r/BlueskySocial
One of the coolest things about Bluesky, is the public APIs it has lend themselves to a lot of neat websites and small software tools being developed. This is the place where you can find out about them. It's also a place where you can get your fill of Twitter hatred whenever you need to re-up, because the folks who post here never tire of putting down the bird site.
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Celebrate the Victories
Me, my sister and my brother
Last week my sister sent messaged me about a failed drive from which she needed some files recovered. She is pretty savvy with computers. She's pretty savvy with most things. Not only that, but she has never used me for free tech support, so I knew this had to be important. She explained that twenty years worth of files from her career as a Methodist pastor were on the drive, her "whole life" as she put it. I told her she could send me the drive, and I'd see what I could do. I didn't lecture her about backups or anything like that.
Over the years, I've been approached by more than one crying person holding a USB drive or a laptop. I've seen people lose the only copy of their not yet submitted master's thesis, the only copy of their wedding video and twenty years worth of lesson plans by one unfortunate middle school teacher. Sometimes I've been able to rescue files but more frequently, despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to help people who have asked, despite badly wanting to.
My sister's drive arrived by mail tonight. It was a 2TB Western Digital external hard drive with a USB3 connector. I added an adaptor and plugged it into my laptop, and it mounted immediately, a good sign. It was formatted with an NTFS (Windows) file system. Unfortunately, instead of showing me the file system, I just got a message that said, "Drive Not Available." That was not a good sign.
The data recovery application I own is called Disk Drill. I'm a Mac user, but the company that makes it also has a Windows version. Disk Drill scanned the drive, and it was able to see files on it. It wanted me to make a byte for byte copy, but I didn't have another 2TB drive on hand. I had two 1TB hard drives and a dual drive bay, though. I used the Mac disk utility to combine the two physical drives into one logical drive and tried to initiate the copy again, but still got a message that the drive was too small. Since I knew that there was less than 100 GB of actual data on the drive, I was able to adjust the size of the number of bytes to be copied and the backup started. Although data seemed to be moving quickly, the progress indicator said the backup would take 28 hours. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Rather than doing a byte for byte copy, which also includes empty space, I elected to Disk Drill's recovery option instead. I initiated it and began to copy files, sometimes quickly and at other times seeming to stop. I got messages about the disk having physical damage, but the program never quit. After about 90 minutes, I had 86K files recovered.
I called my sister and asked her to identify the most critical files and folders so that we could see if they were among the rescued files. They were. She lives just over 100 miles from me, so we agreed that I would begin to upload the data to my Google Drive and that I'd send her a link when it was done. As gently as humanly possible, I suggested that she start keeping two copies of her files. She explained to me that the situation was complicated.
In the process of being assigned a new church, she discovered that her laptop, which is indeed hers and not the property of her employer, had been set up by the tech folks at the church she was leaving to use their One Drive. She had not been aware of that and didn't discover it until she went to look for her personal files and discovered they weren't available through the user profile she now had access to. She got temporary access to the old account and copied her files onto her external drive and then deleted them. And then, of course, the drive failed.
That's where I entered the story, a story that looks like it is going to have a happy ending. My sister has done a lot for me and my kids over the years. Being able to do this for her is just me repaying some of the karmic debt I've incurred. Always celebrate your victories, like I'm celebrating this one.
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Using Google Photos on iOS Makes Leaving Meta Easier
If you've had enough of corporate owned social media, specifically
Facebook and Instagram, and are investigating how to preserve your
photographic memories, the quickest and easiest way, if you have space
available, is to transfer them to Google
Photos. You can do it from your iPhone.
- Click the plus button at the top of the screen
- Then click "Import from other places"
- Select Facebook and when you authenticate, you will be offered the opportunity to import from your Instagram account(s) as well.
Other Reasons to use Google Photos for iOS
- Cross-platform support - if you use both iOS and Android devices, perhaps two different phones or a phone and tablet, Google photos is much easier to access on an iPhone than trying to access iCloud Photos from a browser on Android.
- Automatic Backups - Google photos can upload your iPhone photographs automatically and delete the originals to free up space
- More Free Storage - Apple only provides 5GB of free storage with iCloud, while Google provides 15GB
- Google Lens is baked in - In my experience, Google machine learning does a better job of searching through my photo collection than Apple's tools
- Create Movies and Collages - Google photos also has decent editing tools in the stock app. You get even more if you have a Google One subscription.
- Manage Everything in iOS - With Google Photos, you can do complete management of your library right from your phone: share photos, create albums, editing etc.
There's nothing stopping you from using Google Photos and iCloud for a redundancy. Just remember, both of these services are syncing services. That's different from a backup. If you delete photos from either app, using the wrong procedure, they will stay in your trash for a period of time, but then they will be gone forever.
An early morning view of the Green Mountains in Vermont, taken through the kitchen window of a kind stranger who fed my wife and me two meals and let us spend the night in her home, take showers and wash our clothes when we were hiking through her area. #photography
The "I'm Not a Computer Person" People

Here at the tail end of a career where I've spent at least some portion of my time providing technical support to the end users of technology in industry, education, medicine, insurance and banking, there isn't much I haven't seen. That includes devious middle school kids getting around security protocols designed by the brightest minds at Apple. It also includes people with multiple advanced degrees who can't read instructions on a screen that tell them to click a button labeled "Next."
I was around when Internet connectivity was introduced to the workplace. I worked with truly lovely and talented teachers at the tale end of long careers who valiantly tried to switch from paper grade books to buggy DOS-based student information systems. They would apologize when asking for help and just about always use the phrase "I am not a computer person." I'd say "That's OK, I don't know how to teach kindergarten." Some learned faster than others. Some, sadly, never learned and retired.
OK, that was a quarter of a century ago. I don't have that attitude any more. According to Consumer Affairs, 91% of adults in the US have a smart phone - which is a hand held computer with an operating system. Computer skills are taught in public schools. Most universities require students to have a laptop. Desktops and laptops have been ubiquitous in business for many years. And yet, and yet - I still get hit with "I'm not a computer person."
Somehow, the decision makers in many workplaces have decided that demonstrating competency with one of the basic tools of a job isn't a requirement. They hire people like me to hold the hands of their employees, enabling them to forego skill development because they can just call IT when they can't find a file they were working on yesterday or they've forgotten their password for the third time this month or they can't figure out how to make PDFs open in Adobe Reader.
We require our employees to figure out how to get to work. When automotive technology changes, we don't hold their hand to show them how to plug in an EV. People buy Smart TVs every day, and they figure out how to watch Monday Night Football. Most of my fellow grandparent types manage to get Candy Crush installed.
It absolutely blows my mind how many people using Windows don't know how to find apps by clicking on the start button. I've spent over 30 years being told by IT managers to put the icons for MS Office and the installed browsers on every user's desktop. I don't expect people to use a hex editor or anything, but come on, why do we work from an expectation that people are stupid? Why isn't learning to use a password manager a basic skill? There's a sizable population who truly refuses to use self-service password resets. If they can't call the help desk to get their password reset, they just sit there, not working. WTF?
I've probably written a version of this post four or five times before. I'll finally retire soon enough and then I won't worry about it anymore. It will be someone else's turn.
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Personality Tests

I had a boss once who went to some leadership seminar where he learned about the Meyers Briggs personality. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and wanted all the technical people in the IT department to take it immediately. I was on vacation because my grandson was visiting from out of state. The boss practically begged me to come in to work anyway for an afternoon to take the test. I acquiesced, against my better judgement, and humored him. After we all took the test, and they were evaluated, all hell broke loose. My departmental nemesis and I got the same assessment, and she was not having it. She was furious. I thought it was funny. I've tried unsuccessfully to find the results from that day. I wish I could tell you. If you're interested, you can take it yourself for free.
I'd love to hear anyone's experience with life after this assessment. Did you find it helpful? Did you agree with it? Did my boss violate my privacy?
One other bit of personal experience - when I was a correctional officer, I worked for a time in an in-processing center where we admitted inmates from jail. There they had to take a battery of tests, medical and psychological tests, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a 600 question torture session that they all tried to pencil whip, forcing the staff psychologist to tell them that their answers indicated all sorts of horrible traits, whereupon the inmates would grudgingly try to answer the questions for fear of being labeled as a "bug", prison slang for the mentally ill.
Myers Briggs Type Preferences Perception Judgment
Personality Tests | Psychology Today - 45 different tests, including "Are you a psychopath," "Assertiveness Test" and "Emotional Intelligence" test.
Personality Tests Are Useless (Most Of Them Anyway)
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Recent Additions at MacMenuBar
One of the websites that stay open in my browser at all times is
MacMenubar.com. It's a deep
resource for new Mac apps in multiple categories. It currently features
links and short descriptions to over 1,000 applications. Here's a list
of the latest additions and links to all the different types of apps on
the site.
- Kleanly - Clean your Mac's keyboard, trackpad and display - With just a tap, Kleanly lets you completely disable your keyboard and trackpad, allowing you to clean them without turning your Mac off.
- Trace - This menu bar app tracks the active apps and websites you visit without requiring any extra plugins or extensions (works with Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Arc, Brave, Chromium, and more).
- Onliner on the Mac App Store - Onliner keeps you “online” effortlessly by simulating undetectable mouse activity in the background. Ideal for remote workers and professionals, Onliner ensures uninterrupted focus and avoids idle status notifications. Simple, efficient, and smarter than any mouse jiggler.
- fayazarahawa A simple white noise app which sits in the menubar - Hawa means air/breeze in Hindi. This menubar plays ambient sounds to help you focus on your work or relax. You can choose from a variety of sounds, adjust the volume of each sound individually, or create your own mix.
- Deskeen - Capture your insight! - This menu bar app is designed to efficiently capture your screen. Every feature is accessible through quick keyboard shortcuts. Deskeen can read everything, from symbols to languages.
- RSS Ticker News Feed on the Mac App Store - This menu bar app is an RSS reader designed to mimic the ticker display seen on forex stock exchange boards. News feeds update automatically when their respective RSS feeds are refreshed. The free version is limited to a single RSS feed.
- Sudoku Anyway on the Mac App Store - This menubar app features unlimited puzzles, five difficulty levels, customizable board colors, and helpful hints.
- Learn Flags - Menu Edition on the Mac App Store - Learn world flags and boost your memory with this quick-access menubar game.
- Captain for Mac - Manage Docker containers instantly from your menu bar. See which containers are running and which have stopped.
- RightMenu Master 1.11.0 - This menu bar app is a Finder extension that adds powerful functionality to the right-click menu and toolbar in Finder.
- Overkill-for-mac Stop iTunes from opening when you connect your iPhone - This menu bar app makes sure iTunes never interrupts your work. If you have other apps you don’t want to launch automatically (e.g. Photos app), you can add those apps to the Overkill list as well.
- Let It Snow - A touch of winter with snowflakes that gracefully drift across your screen.
- MenuBarGrid on the Mac App Store - Turn Google Sheets into powerful menu bar apps. Customize layouts, automate updates, and manage projects effortlessly.
- Ping MenuBar - This menu bar app displays ongoing ping (ICMP) results as a compact visualization. The design is similar to Pingr.
- NeverNap in the Mac App Store - NeverNap keeps your Mac awake, preventing sleep or screensaver activation for 5 minutes or indefinitely. It ensures smooth operation without manual system adjustments.
Categories at MacMenuBar
- AI Apps
- Audio Apps
- Audio Apps (Music)
- Audio Apps (Podcast)
- Battery Apps
- Browser Apps
- Calendar Apps
- Cleaning Apps
- Clipboard Managers
- cloud apps
- color apps
- design apps
- developer apps
- display apps
- email & contacts
- files & folders
- Finance Apps
- Keyboard Apps
- launcher Apps
- Meeting Apps
- menu bar managers
- misc & others
- Network Apps
- note taking apps
- personal apps
- Productivity apps
- screen capturing Apps
- security apps
- Sleep control apps
- social apps
- system Stats
- system tools
- time apps
- time apps (pomodoro)
- Time Tracking Apps
- Time Zone Apps
- To-Do List Apps
- wallpaper apps
- weather apps
- window managers
- writing apps
How Do You Know When It's Over?

I'm not one you worries about endings that much. In my experience, they are difficult to predict and arrive suddenly. Jobs, marriages, friendships, passions are all here until they are not. Buddhists believe that everything is disintegrating from the moment it is created. So do I. Permanence is an illusion. Thinking back on the giants I've known and how I could not conceive of a world without them and now what do I have? I have a world without them.
I am not implying that my wife or your is going to leave either of us tomorrow, although you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Because all rules have exceptions, there are cases where things apparently haven't changed over the course of my lifetime. No matter what I've done, and I have certainly done much, my dear Mom has always been there. Always. Always. Always.
Within one month's time, I went from a child walking in a line to the lunchroom, raising my hand when I wanted to speak and asking permission to use the bathroom to being handed a rifle and shooting at human silhouettes representing the enemies of my country. Childhood ended abruptly at the gates of Ft. Benning. More than once, I had a job when I woke up and didn't have one when I went to sleep. It could happen again tomorrow.
Any reunion worth its salt will have a table with pictures of those who could not be there to celebrate. Because they died. In fact they start dying immediately, and they just keep on doing it. The rest of us keep getting up and going to work until we join them and someone puts our picture in the table at the next reunion.
I have a point.
I'm getting to it.
Just live. Do your job and try not to love it or hate it too much. It's just a job. Love your wife today. Don't wait for things to get better or different before you're ready to put in that extra effort. Friendships can wither if you don't water them, so fill up your bucket and make some phone calls or get in your car and go see someone. If you have a passion, and god I hope you do because that's what makes life worth living, then act on it today. Ride your bike, write in your journal, get out your camera, go to the gym. Do it today. It's all you have.
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What Happens When You Get Used to Evil Companies

It's only human to become used to even the worst of news. When you hear the same types of events reported for the hundredth time though, it's hard to attach any emotion to it. Most people who use social media are at least peripherally aware that the big companies that own Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others have been caught doing everything from violating users' privacy and lying about it to undermining a US election by platforming a Russian intelligence agency. Maybe you even know about the resistance these companies have put up to cracking down on child sexual abuse material and bullying that's resulted in teen suicides. I case some of this sounds a little unfamiliar, let me just remind you of a few of the things that users of these platforms are implicitly condoning.
FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook | Federal Trade Commission - I case you're wondering, this happened during the first Trump administration, not under the Democrats. Facebook blatantly lied for years to users to lull them into thinking their personal information was protected while selling it to the highest bidder, including personal telephone numbers. It subjected users photographs to illegal facial recognition software.
Anti-Semitic social posts 'not taken down' in 80% of cases - Even when notified of Neo-Nazis posting hateful and derogatory content, the big platforms only take action in one case out of four. On the other hand, I've had posts removed that extolled the French resistance against the Nazis in World War Two removed. I recently posted a cover of Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1936 (Hitler) to compare it to 2024's MOY (Trump). That post was also removed.
Facebook and Instagram are steering child predators to kids, New Mexico AG alleges - CBS News - An undercover investigation set up phony accounts of fictional teens and preteens, using photographs generated by artificial intelligence. Meta's algorithms recommended sexual content to those accounts, which were also subject to a stream of explicit messages and propositions from adults on the platforms.
Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis? | The New Yorker - A product manager at Facebook named Frances Haugen. Haugen, ...released thousands of the company’s internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the company knew about the harmful effects of social media on mental health but consistently chose “profit over safety.”
Snapchat brushed aside warnings of child harm, documents show : NPR - An internal email shows the company received around 10,000 reports of sextortion per month. Employees pointed to one account that had 75 complaints against it, and it wasn't taken down. Internally, Snapchat said that addressing child grooming would create privacy issues and be too expensive.
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FSNotes - A Free and Open-Source Successor to NValt
FSNotes is a plain text note
editor with a two-pane interface of Brett Terpstra's classic Nvalt,
which ceased development in 2017. FSNotes has an extensive feature set
for run-of-the-mill notes and for developers. If you have an existing
folder of plain text or Markdown notes, you can access them from FSNotes
by moving or copying the files to the default folder or by changing the
path to the folder you are already using.
There are built-in keyboard shortcuts for searching your notes database, creating a new note from the clipboard contents and for creating new notes. You can choose a default external editor if you want to use something like Bbedit or Cot. The two pane layout can be used side by side or over/under. You can change the appearance and color of the app, as well as light/dark themes and the fonts used for notes and code. Line spacing and margins are also adjustable. Aside from encryption, you can also lock the app with a master password.
Features Included
- Markdown-first. Also supports any plaintext files.
- Fast and lightweight. Works smoothly with 10k+ files.
- Access anywhere. Sync with iCloud Drive or Dropbox. (iCloud required for iOS syncing)
- Multi-folder storage.
- Keyboard-centric. nvalt-inspired controls and shortcuts.
- Syntax highlighting within code blocks. Supports over 170 programming languages.
- In-line image support.
- Organize with tags.
- Cross-note links using [[double brackets]].
- Elastic two-pane view. Choose a vertical or horizontal layout.
- External editor support (changes seamless live sync with UI).
- Pin important notes.
- Quickly copy notes to the clipboard.
- Dark mode.
- AES-256 encryption.
- Mermaid and MathJax support.
- Optional Git versioning and backups.
You can examine the code and download the current version for free on GitHub. If you wish to support development and receive automatic updates, you can get FSNotes on the Mac App Store for $8.99. There is also an iOS version which can sync with iCloud.
A Non-Believer's Appreciation of Religion

Despite having tried mightily for many years, I've never experienced a moment of true belief in God in all my time on planet Earth. I grew up attending church. I took my kids to church. I've been baptized in three different denominations. I owe my life to a program that is riddled through and through with references to God (there are loopholes) and yet I just can't muster up any conviction that there's anything like a deity. I just can't do it.
I'm not angry with religion. I don't think religious people are stupid or always deluded. I think there's a lot of wisdom and practical life advice in many tenets of various faiths, including Christianity, the one with which I am most familiar. If you don't believe the golden rule has practical applications in personal relationships, we probably won't be friends. Unlike a lot of in your face Christians though, I am much more comfortable with the Beatitudes than I am with the 10 Commandments. "Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the merciful" I can get behind that.
My sister is a minister in the Methodist Church. Aside from religion, we share a lot of similar beliefs about the world and about the solutions for its problems. I get angry when someone makes it known how much they love Jesus and yet they vote for a party or politicians who promise to cut food programs for the poor, as an example. My sister explained how some people truly believe that the answer to poverty is the food kitchen at their church, where they donate their time and money, taking a personal interest in the people who show up there. OK. I think that kind of labor and commitment is admirable. I don't think it's a comprehensive answer to poverty, but I don't look down on it.
When there are natural disasters, and I live in hurricane country where they are common, there are organized teams from faith based organizations who show up with boots on the ground to help people. The provide food and other necessities to anyone who needs it. Habitat for Humanity has a great record of helping people achieve home ownership. Mission teams routinely go to Haiti and other impoverished counties in this hemisphere to provide medical care and construction labor. That's real tangible stuff.
Yes, there are massive problems and contradictions with religion worldwide and particularly in my country. Covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests for decades is inexcusable. The church's attitude toward the LGBT community is a direct contradiction to the premise that God is love. The right-wing claim to be the party of God is offensive to anyone, even non-believers, who have ever read the Bible. The persecution of immigrants, the denial of food, shelter and medical care to people in need in a country with so much excess wealth is obscene. I'm not making any excuses for that.
Except for the believing in God part, most of my personal ethical and moral standards would past muster with the church. When I see someone who is comforted by their faith, I am nothing but happy for them. It's a damn cruel world and all of us has to take comfort wherever we can find it.
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Automations Make Macs Fun - Try These

I use all kinds of apps and services on my Mac and iPhone to make things happen in the background to make my life easier. I like to reserve my headspace for things I enjoy contemplating, like where I'm going to get my next order of tacos. I don't like having to remember to do things, mostly because I'm not that good at it. Here are a few of my favorite "set it and forget it" workflows.
Journaling with Day One
My first Day One entry was in January 2014. Since then, I have over 20,000 separate posts that are backed up online and synced to my iPhone, iPad and Mac. Here are the entry types that get automatically created:
- Liked YouTube videos
- Posts from all three of my blogs
- Articles I save to Pocket
- Mastodon posts
- Every TV show and movie I watch
- Daily weather reports
- Books I add to Goodreads
All of these automations are done with IFTTT, may of them with RSS feeds. - Day One Integrations - Connect Your Apps with IFTTT
Time of Day and other Triggers with Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestrohas a long list of triggering events that cause automations to run in the background. Here are a few of my favorites.
- Time of Day Trigger - an hour before I get up, Keyboard Maestro ejects my backup drive from my laptop so all I have to do is unplug it when I start the day - no more error messages because I was bleary-eyed and forgot to go through the procedure.
- Time of Day Trigger - at 2AM,Keyboard Maestro launches a file synchronization appthat backs up my Obsidian vault to Google Drive and then quits.
- Login Trigger - At work, whenever I log into my computer, all of my open apps are hidden so that if people are standing around my desk, they don't get to see what web pages I had opened when I left to go get a cup of coffee. It's none of their business.
File Magic With Hazel
Hazel is a Mac app that watches specified folders on your computer for certain conditions. When those conditions are met, it performs any of a long list of actions on the files.
- When I left Evernote, I missed being able to send emails to my my new notes app,Obsidian, so I created a workflow that gives me that non-native capability.
- Add images I download from the Internet to the Mac photos app - without even opening Photos
- With the help off a 99-cent app from the app store, Hazel automatically mounts downloaded DMG archives, extracts the program contained within, moves it to my Applications folder and dismounts the archive.
Obsidian Tricks
At it's core, Obsidian is just a plain text markdown editor. The power comes from it's massive 2000-plus and counting available plug-ins. Here are a few automations they allow me to set up.
- Download the full text of all the articles I send to my read-it-later service, Pocket.
- Download the highlights I make on any of the 1300 bookmarks I have saved in Raindrop
- Keep a centralized recordof my daily schedule and tasks completed using the data from my calendar and task manager.
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Unsplash Wallpaper App - Free Unlimited Wallpapers at Your Fingertips
Unsplash is one of the largest providers of royalty-free images in the world. Without an account, you can search for, download and use any one of the millions of photographs on the site. For photography fans or anyone who enjoys aesthetically pleasing wallpapers, Unsplash provides a free app to cycle the wallpaper on your displays at regular intervals: hourly, daily, weekly. You can also manually cycle in a new image. When using the manual settings, the app has a built-in viewer so you can see a reasonably sized thumbnail preview of the available images. The selected image is downloaded to your computer, helping you to create a permanent collection if you want one. It provides wallpapers for all attached displays and virtual desktops.
You can select one or more categories of images, from which the app will select new wallpapers. The default categories included with the app include:
- Black and White
- Nature
- Beach
- Animals
- Space
- Textures
- Abstract
- Editorial
You can also browse the thousands of collections on the Unsplash website and choose collections to add to the wallpaper app. One drawback is that you can only add one wallpaper collection at a time. To add a new collection, you have to remove your previous custom selection.
The app is available in the App store for free. It does not collect any information connected to your identity.
How to Internet - 2025 Edition

Even after it became obvious that Facebook was an invasive cancer on not just the Internet, but all society, I kept my account. There were too many ways it was ingrained into my life. It was the way my cycling club announced rides and planned events. Friends who moved away years ago kept in touch with me through Facebook. So many people on the job where I worked for 20 years had accounts and I could up with them. I had 16 years of photos from family birthday parties, Christmas get-togethers and I could see my grandchildren's first days of school and their graduations. That's what kept me there. It wasn't for the opportunity to look at and post memes or to preach to the choir or lecture people on how to feel about this or that, although I did do some of all of that too. I'd use it occasionally when I got bored to see clips of the Beatles, old boxing matches and baseball games from my youth. It was good for that.
I had a Twitter account too, but it was never that important to me. I didn't have many real relationships there. I mainly followed hard new journalists and tech people. I liked to follow it during presidential debates, which make my stomach hurt if i try to watch them. I'd much rather read the astonished takes from journos about whatever put-downs the politicians were using on each other. When I started blogging, I used Twitter as just another place to put links to my app reviews and Obsidian how-to articles. I talked to a few people, but all my real interacting was happening on Mastodon. Finally, I decided I just couldn't be someone who hung out at that particular Nazi bar just to get a few more eyeballs on my little personal, n on-monetized blog. I closed my account and didn't have a single emotion as a result. It was just checking something off a to-do list.
When Mark Zuckerberg while wearing a $900,000 watch, announced last week that Meta was going to stop fact checking, I knew the end was near. Then that asshole went on Joe Rogan and lied. He claimed he was bullied by the meanies in the Biden administration who yelled at him for letting Republicans tell people not to wear masks or get vaccinated during the deadliest pandemic in a century. That was followed by an announcement that Meta was going to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. As if that weren't enough, Facebook deleted content it had bragged about creating for trans and non-binary people. I couldn't take it.
I sat down and marked my Threads and Instagram accounts for deletion. I requested an archive of the thousands of pictures and posts I had on Facebook, dating all the way back to the George W. Bush administration. When that comes through, Facebook is gone. Down here in the south we still have plenty of all white organizations ranging from private swimming pools, to country clubs to churches and ceremonial military units. Those are just the organized all white organizations. Lots of ad hoc groups are intensely exclusionary, too. I made a point a long, long time ago to avoid all of that and never, ever willingly participate or endorse all white spaces. I'm not going to participate in fact free or gay free or trans free spaces either. I'm not going to be responsible for a single set of eyes looking at a damn thing Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk profit from. I am embarrassed that it took me so long.
It's been a decade since Facebook ran an experiment on the accounts of a whopping 600,000 people to see if it could make them sad by what it exposed them to. Yeah, they really did that and it worked. People found about it. It made the news. Nothing ever came of it because in America, billionaires are like Ricky Bobby's sons. They get to do whatever they want.
You do you. I'm not here to tell you that using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Threads makes you a bad person. If you stay, I'll assume that you have a good reason. I just can't think of one that would let me use something that will be a prime means if spreading disinformation to millions of people, disinformation that will hurt and possibly even kill them. Too dramatic? I think not. That's what it comes down to. The people running that company and the politicians they are now supporting don't give a shit if you live or die. They just want to extract as much wealth from you as they can.
Get a Mastodon account. Get a Bluesky account. Just stay away from billionaire owned manipulation machines.
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The Anonymous Husband's Club

My wife and I work for the same private university. She's been there several years longer than I have, and she's the associate VP for finance and controller in charge of the finance department and some other stuff like the book store and the post office. She goes to meetings, has a corporate credit card, and people have to ask her for permission to do stuff. Me, I am the old guy in the IT department who you ask for a mouse when yours dies. If someone is giving me a hard time, i just casually mention who I am married to and they leave me alone. I have a system.
Of course, in her private life, she's a talented ultramarathon runner, winner of races from distances of 50K to 100 miles. She routinely outruns paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division and college athletes. We've been married since 2013. I'm her biggest cheerleader. Standing in her shadow is my favorite place to be.
I, as they say, used to be kinda famous in our circles too. I met her at one of many century (100 mile) bike rides I organized. I traveled all over this country and Europe as an organizer and speaker. Before I retired from my career job, I'd been the senior person in my role for years. These days though, my athletic career is over and I'd quit my job before I let them promote me to a position with more authority or responsibility. There's not even a war for me to protest. I'm fine thanks.
Here are some stories about other guys in the anonymous husbands club.
24 Times Celebrities Married—or Dated—Normal People | Vogue
What the Husbands of Stars Do for a Living
34 Celebrity Spouses You Didn't Know Existed
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Background Music - Per App Volume Control and More
When I am at work, I like to leave my system volume setting in the
midrange. I want to be able to hear incoming mail alerts and calls on
Microsoft Teams. What I expressly do not want is have anything from
YouTube, or any other website suddenly playing through my iMac speakers.
At home, I like to have music playing and I appreciate the convenience
of having it stop and restart automatically if I decide to watch a
video. The free app, Background
Music can handle both of these tasks. You can set the volume for any
app to a custom level (including muted).
The auto-pause feature currently supports the following music players:
You can also record system audio with Background Music. With Background Music running, launch QuickTime Player and select File > New Audio Recording (or New Screen Recording, New Movie Recording). Then click the dropdown menu (⌄) next to the record button and select Background Music as the input device.
You can download Background Music on GitHub.
Homebrew users can install it by running this command in Terminal
brew install --cask background-music
I have it on good authority that this is @manton’s home screen. He also doesn’t exactly know why he has two RSS readers on there. David Pierce from the Installer newsletter from The Verge gave a nice shoutout to Micro.blog today and said that Micro One would be his choice if he were to start a blog.
This Week's Bookmarks - Cheapest Destinations, Make Life Easier, Avoiding Huge Medical Bills, Apple Music Features, Infiltrating Militias, Travel Destinations, CES 2025

The World's Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune - You can travel internationally, and travel well, for less than you spend each month to put a roof over your head. You just need to pick the right places. Places where a fistful of dollars will pay for weeks of hotels, train rides, and meals.
One-off actions that’ll make your life easier. Practical betterments - # A collection of one-off actions that improve your life continuously — however marginally.
Is the doctor overcharging me? How to avoid huge medical bills and lower existing ones. | Vox - Your doctor orders blood work or requests you get a biopsy, or maybe your kid broke a bone and you need to rush to the emergency department. A few months later, a bill arrives in the mail with an astounding figure. Despite the federal No Surprises Act made into law in 2022 — which prevents providers from saddling patients with huge bills for out-of-network services — many Americans have felt the shock of a medical bill.
11 Hidden Features in Apple Music Every User Should Know About | Lifehacker - Apple Music (previously iTunes) is a behemoth of a music manager app for macOS and Windows—and it has changed and developed so much since its launch in 2001 that you may well have not come across everything this piece of software has to offer. It has evolved almost as rapidly as the digital music industry.
How a Mole Infiltrated the Highest Ranks of American Militias — ProPublica - - A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn't tell police or the FBI. He didn't tell his family or friends.
2025 Travel Destinations: 52 Places to Go This Year - Where will the new year take you? Kick-start your travel plans by selecting favorites from the annual list.
The weirdest tech at CES 2025 - The Verge - From encapsulated anime girls to an air-purifying cat tower, there was something for everyone at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.
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Life in Adventure Land

Tomorrow is Wonder Woman's birthday. To prove to everyone that age doesn't stop her, she's going on a four-run...but wait, there's more. Today we had a WFH opportunity because of the threat of snow. We decided to take some PTO and make the familiar drive to the Uwharrie National Forest, a couple of hours from where we live. Some call the place the Uwharrie Mountains and they were -- a couple of eons today. Today they are a series of short but steep climbs, although none of them are over 1,000 feet. One of the US National Scenic Trails runs through the forest and this is where she wants to run...in the snow...on her birthday.
We've been coming here for years. It is a fun place to hike and camp. There are also cosy little cabins available, which is where we're staying this weekend. We've tented through a snow and ice storm here before though, just to say we'd done it. In hindsight, it may not have been the most comfortable night's sleep I ever had, but it's a fond memory. The one-room cabin we are in is nice though. It's heated, has a kitchen, shower and wi-fi - just the basic essentials.
At the end of the month, we are going to Florida for a long weekend so Wonder Woman can keep a promise to her cousin to run the Miami Marathon with her. WW's extended family lives in the area. Her grandfather moved there in the fifties when he got out of the Army and my mother-in-laws siblings all stayed in the area. I've only been there once and that was more than thirty years ago on the way to Key West. It's always nice to get away from home and experience something new.
My 60th birthday is next month and we will be getting out of town for that too. There is a lakeside hotel about an hour away where we've been a couple of times. Of course it has easy access to an excellent running trail. There is a Lebanese restaurant there I really like, and it's what I've picked for my birthday dinner. I just want to lounge around for the weekend, do some writing, maybe watch a movie, visit the REI and relax.
I found out today that WW signed up for a race in South Carolina in March that lasts for 10 hours. The participants have to run a 5K every hour on the hour - for a total of 50K by the end of the day. Whoever has the fastest cumulative time will be the winner. The race is called Payton's Wild and Wacky 50K and it's in the low country area near Charleston where there are lots of great events. A few years ago she even got me to do the Bridge Run, which is one of the largest 10Ks in the world with over 40,000 participants. The next day we did a 100K bike ride, fittingly called The After the Bridge Run Ride.
If it weren't for Wonder Woman, I'd lead a pretty uneventful life, being a homebody and just getting out to go see the grandkids once in a while. With her in charge, I'm always riding shotgun, filling up her water bottles when asked, ringing a cowbell and cheering her on. I get to meet interesting people in the ultrarunning community and go to interesting places. I'm not complaining.
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Isolated Dialects - The Lumbee Indians and the High Tiders

The US is a large country with well-known accents and dialects recognized all over the world. Just about anyone with a knowledge of the English language can distinguish a Southern drawl from a thick Brooklyn accent. What I find fascinating are the tiny, isolated dialects confined to small geographical locations. My home state of North Carolina has 100 counties. Two of them have dialects immediately recognizable.
Robeson County is the home of the Lumbee Native American tribe. You may not be familiar with this tribe, but it is one of the largest in the Eastern US. There are 55,000 tribal members in the county. Most Lumbees have classic English last names like Locklear, Oxendine, Dial and Lowery. Their distinctive dialect is instantly recognizable both for its unique pronunciations and vocabulary.
Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Lumbee . Papers
INDIAN BY BIRTH - THE LUMBEE DIALECT
Dare County is the location of North Carolina's Outer Banks, a thin strip of barrier islands. Natives of the region speak with is called the Hoi Toider (High Tider) or Tidewater accent. On Ocracoke Island or at Cape Hatteras, you will hear words like dingbatter, meehonkey and quamished.
What is the High Tider accent?
The Carolina Brogue: Outer Banks Vocabulary
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Cheatsheet - Mac, iOS, WatchOS
I have hundreds of contacts and I know almost no phone numbers. My
job requires me to gain entrance to numerous rooms secured with keypad
combinations. Remembering hotel room numbers is always a challenge.
Don't put a gun to my head and ask me the license plated of my wife's
car. My solution for quickly referencing these little pieces of
information regardless of whether my phone or computer is in reach or
not is Cheatsheet, a
synchronized notes app I that allows me to enter information on my
computer or phone that I can easily get to from any device, including my
watch, which is a huge help.
With Cheatsheet, I can format notes with rich text if I want and assign one of 200 icons to them for easy visual recognition. I can search my notes within the app or in Spotlight. I can even create new notes with Siri, including type to Siri. Cheatsheet notes can be organized into folders. For security, the app can be protected by a passcode. Both the Mac and the iOS apps can be accessed via the share sheet or in widgets. The Mac also has menu bar access. There is shortcut support for creating, appending to moving and finding cheats. The iOS app featured a custom keyboard for inserting up to 50 different cheats into other applications.
Cheatsheet has been around for over a decade but is frequently updates. The Mac version costs $7.99 in the AppStore. The iOS version comes in a free and a pro version, which is $5.99 a year but it is what provides the ability to:
• Remove limits on the widget, keyboard, and Watch app.
• Protect
your cheats with Passcode Lock.
• Organize your cheats with
folders.
• Sync your cheats between your devices with iCloud.
If you love the app but hate subscriptions, you can purchase a lifetime
license, albeit for the steep price of $69.99
.
Datacever - Simple Data Control When You Have to Tether Your Mac
I don't know about you, but whenever I have to tether my laptop to my iPhone, I get nervous about the possibility of some unknown process running in the background and chewing up my data. Even though my mobile provider calls my plan unlimited, I know that there are always gotchas. I tried TripMode a while back, but it was overly complex for my needs, with more settings and options than I wanted to mess with.
I recently found a much simpler menu bar app that I prefer for its simplicity and ease of use. Datacever by developer sameh sayed is an inexpensive app available from the App Store for $6.99. You can allow or deny any app access to the Internet. For the apps you permit access to, you can set data caps. If you don't want to set a cap, you can still monitor your traffic on a per-app basis. It does exactly what I need and nothing more. The privacy policy states that no data of any type is collected. Your browsing remains private.
If you have ever looked at the DNS logs of your Mac with the browser not running, you know that there are still plenty of apps trying to call home constantly. Control all of that with Datacever and don't let your data be wasted by needless telemetry,
The Winds on Mt. Washington

I'm no alpinest, but I've climbed the highest mountains in several states via hiking trails. In July 2013, after spending the night sleeping on the floor of the Lake in the Clouds Hut operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire's White Mountain National park, Wonder Woman and I climbed the highest mountain in the northeast United States, to the 6,288 ft. peak of Mt. Washington. As we started the long climb, a sign placed by the US Forest Service stood beside the trail with a stark warning proclaiming "THE AREA AHEAD HAS THE WORST WEATHER IN AMERICA. MANY HAVE DIED THERE FROM EXPOSURE, EVEN IN THE SUMMER. TURN BACK NOW IF THE WEATHER IS BAD. WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST"
Fortunately.the weather on this mid-summer day was cloudy and a little windy, although we could see sunshine down in the valley below. It took a couple of hours to reach the peak. The winds grew increasingly stronger and we were soaked by the moisture in the clouds passing around (not over) us. At the summit, there is a weather station that's been there for decades and is manned 24/7/365. There was a place where you could see the weather conditions, including the wind speed. On our summit day, the steady winds were blowing at 50 MPH with gusts up to 60 MPH. We were both wearing every layer of clothing we carried in our backpacks.
One of the most intimidating things I've ever seen was the plaque for all the people who have lost their lives on the mountain. It was crowded with names, but they'd left room to add more, as if it were some perverse employee of the moth club.
Just to give you an idea why that spot has the worst weather in the US, read below about the April day in 1934 when the wind speed was recorded at 231 MPH on two separate occasions, a record that stood until a higher speed was recorded during a Pacific cyclone during the 1990s.
Remembering the Big Wind - Mount Washington Observatory
Happy ‘Big Wind Day': 90 years since incredible 231 mph gust at Mount Washington | Fox Weather
Wonder Woman Coming Up the Mountain
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I'm Sorry Ava - Blog Questions

I didn't find out until yesterday that Ava challenged me to answer these questions in her initial post. I'd been kind of sad that no one had invited me to participate, so yeah, I'm a dunce. My apologies to Ava for taking so long.
Why Did You Make the Blog in the First Place?
I retired in 2020 and I spent most of 2021 and 2022 off the Internet and used very little technology. I went months without opening my computer and my phone usage was mostly doom-scrolling Reddit and never posting. To get out of that lethargy, I decided to go back to work at a low stress job at the university where my wife works. I spent my whole carer in IT, so I ended back in front of a computer and it eventually rekindled my interest in the tech I'd always loved. I started reading blogs again for the first time in five or six years. Through my reading, I discovered that Robb Knight had created a page where hundreds of people listed the apps they used in all areas of their lives. I really wanted to participate, but I didn't have a way to post anywhere. I did some looking around and decided to buy a domain for $1 and open an account at Micro.blog, just so I could make that single post and get featured on Robb's page.
Why Did You Choose Bearblog?
Choosing Bear Blog was 100% due to FOMO. I'd become Internet friends with several bloggers who moved to Bear and were singing its praises. I'd expanded my own blogging after a few months from just Micro.Blog to include Scribbles which hosted Living Out Loud and AppAddict. To make use of BearBlog, I transferred Living Out Loud in a marathon session of exporting and importing posts, so that I could join Robert and Jedda. It's funny that we are the very three people that Ava tagged in her original post
Have You Blogged on other Platforms Before?
Aside from Micro.blog and Scribbles, I also blogged at the late great Geo Cities back in the early days of the Internet. I used my own domain, wonderfulmonds.com, named after a minor league baseball player. In 2013, I blogged every one of the 156 days it took to thruhike the Appalachian Trail. That blog is still online at the Trail Journals website. Lefty and Hush's 2013 Appalachian Trail Journal : Part of Trail Journals' Backpacking and Hiking Journals
Do You Write Your Posts Directly in the Editor or in Another Software?
I never write directly in the editor at BearBlog or anywhere else. Almost all of my writing is done in Obsidian or in Drafts on my phone when I am traveling. I use a template in the editor to feature web mentions and for the header to write a meta_description and include a meta_image. I've tried hard over the years to preserve what I've written. I have documents I created in the late 90s on my computer along with the 800 or so posts I've written in the past year.
When Do You Feel Most Inspired to Write?
I usually want to write when I'm supposed to be doing something else. The whole ritual of sitting down at the computer, opening a new document and typing the title gives me a rush. I can write with the world going crazy around me. I like a good quiet early morning when it is still dark outside but I do my best writing later in the day when I have had time to chew on a few ideas. I write three posts a day, so writing is usually on my mind.
Do You Publish Immediately after Writing or Do You Let it Simmer a Bit as a Draft?
LOL - sometimes I don't even have the patience to proofread what I write. I don't use a system of drafts. What people read is what came out of head and onto my computer screen pretty much verbatim. Any rewriting is the "oh shit" variety when I spot typos in what I have already published or when some kind soul writes me and informs me of some egregious mistake.
Your Favorite post on Your Blog?
I wrote a piece in for September's IndieWeb Carnival on the last bottle of bourbon I drank. That was in 2008. I've been sober ever since after a long, long fight with addiction. When I published it, my oldest daughter who was obviously affected by all of that while growing up, sent me a simple "I love you" and it was meaningful in a deep and powerful way.
Any Future Plans for Your Blog? Maybe a Redesign, Changing the Tag System, Etc.?
Blog design is such a rabbit hole. I'm pretty happy with the way things look now, even though it's kind of bland and cookie cutter. I don't know CSS beyond what nice people give to me after I ask them a question. I tend to make small changes, usually leaning towards ease of use stuff for myself over time. I appreciate well-designed personal sites, but I'm more into writing than I am into colors, fonts and graphics.
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It occasionally gets pretty damn cold in NC as evidenced by this frozen fountain. It might even snow this weekend for the first time in four or five years.
The Guinness Book of World Records

During elementary school trips to the library, if all the books on Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle were already checked out by some other kid boning up on life's dangers, my go to source of reading material was the ever fascinating Guinness Book of World Records. I remember pictures of the world's heaviest twins riding motorcycles and the name of the tallest man who ever lived (Robert Wadlow). As it turns out, I am not alone in my appreciation for this unusual record book. Over 150 million copies have been sold in yearly editions. 2025 will mark the 70th time the book is issued.
In 1954, the managing director of the Guinness Brewing Company had the idea to create a book to settle arguments between pub patrons. He planned to give the books away to the owners of public house in the United Kingdon. He hired a pair of brothers to compile the book, sports journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter. The first edition contained about 4,000 records and was so popular that within months more copies were printed and this time for sale. It has been continuously in print ever since.
The Guinness World Records | Description, History, & Facts | Britannica
Our story | Guinness World Records
2025: Guinness World Records $13.98
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The Difference Between Journaling and Blogging

When I look back at my blog, it reveals more about my feelings than any journal I've ever kept. I can tell when I was feeling light-hearted or when politics have had me riled up. When I write about my (grown) kids it is usually a reflection of when I'm missing them. My dear sweet Mom reads every post and I put little messages to her in here and try not to cuss. I'm honest about my mental health. Sometimes I vent my frustrations from work, or you know, people.
Every time I have ever tried to keep a journal, it's quickly devolved into nothing more than just a daily narrative - when I got up, what I did at work, what I did in the evening. I always start off thinking I'll inject some emotion into it, something that future me will read with admiration. It just never happens. I've used the great journaling app, Day One, since 2014, but it is more of a digital scrapbook into which I funnel photographs, social media posts, books, movies and TV shows watched and news stories. It's fun to maintain and look through, but I don't get much of a clue about how past me felt on all those days unless one of the photos conjures up a memory.
Before I started this blog, I'd had two stints of writing for other people behind me. One was back in the 90s before we had social media. I used to write essays and include them in our family email chain. I've republished a couple of them here and here. The email chain petered out and most of the writing I did for the next decade was technical in nature.
In 2013, my wife and I hiked the Appalachian Trail on a five-month honeymoon. I used an iPhone 5 to write a blog entry every night in our tent or whatever hostel we happened to be in with pictures and details from the day's journey. I thought about continuing it when we got home, but going back to work and a lack of spectacular views and adventure extinguished that flame.
These days. I average about 1,000 words a day. I write about anything I feel like for most of that, although I dedicate some time to my hobby of writing app reviews. I went through my first hundred days and created a list of blogging prompts, which several people have amazingly taken and completed 50 or more of their own posts from.
Last week, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my first blog post in my re-entry into the world of personal bloggers. I didn't start the crazy post something every day thing until March. I've written for my blog during a hurricane. I kept it going through a camping trip with five of my grandchildren. More than a few posts have been pecked out on my phone during road trips and airplane flights. I am much more dedicated to talking to y'all than I ever was writing for myself. Thankfully, I have an open-book personality. I'm not guarded about much. My life has been messy and imperfect, but I've done some fun stuffand some hard stuff and ended up pretty happy for the most part. For me it would be harder not to write about my life than it would be to conceal every wart.
Thanks for reading.
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Lossless Cut - Save Time When Editing Videos
The command like application, FFmpeg is remarkably powerful but it
is also overly complicated for people who don't use the terminal much or
who don't have the headspace to memorize a bunch of esoteric commands.
Thankfully, there are some good front ends. Lossless Cut
is one whose main feature is specifically lossless trimming and cutting
of video and audio files, which is great for saving space by
rough-cutting your large video files taken from a video camera. It is
extremely fast, allowing you to trim the video without having a loss of
quality caused by having to do (slow) any encoding.
Some Example Lossless Use Cases
- Remove commercials from recorded TV shows
- Remove audio tracks from a file
- Combine audio and video tracks from separate recordings
- Split video into segments to meet social media length limits
- Rotating phone videos that come out the wrong way without actually re-encoding the video
Features
- Extract all tracks from a file (extract video, audio, subtitle, attachments and other tracks from one file into separate files)
- Losslessly rearrange the order of video/audio segments
- Take full-resolution snapshots from videos in JPEG/PNG format (low or high quality)
- Import/export segments: MP4/MKV chapter marks, Text file, YouTube, CSV, CUE, XML (DaVinci, Final Cut Pro) and more
- View FFmpeg last command log so you can modify and re-run recent commands on the command line
Many thanks to Scott Kingery from TechLifeWeb blog for pointing out this gem of a product. It's a good blog to add to your RSS reader for tech tips and leads to new software.
You can download Lossless Cut and get additional information on GitHub.
Open Source Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means When It Comes To Safety
What about open-source software?" I hear you say. "I'll just review the source code and determine whether it's malicious".
"I would make several points in response to this. The first is:
"LOL". Any nontrivial program consists of hundreds of thousands to
millions of lines of code, and reviewing any fraction of that in a
reasonable period of time is simply impractical. The way you can tell
this is that people are constantly finding vulnerabilities in programs,
and if it were straightforward to find those vulnerabilities, then we
would have found them all"
From - Why
it's hard to trust software, but you mostly have to anyway
I'd say more than 90% of the people who choose FOSS over everything
else, don't have the chops to go to GitHub and look at code to really
determine how safe a program is. I use a lot of FOSS and I have nothing
but appreciation for the people who develop it, but I don't think for
one minute that it is all somehow safer than any commercial software.
When Something Isn't Broken, but Everyone thinks It Is

It's ironic that I've worked in schools for the majority of my adult life. Except for a year here and there, I didn't enjoy the 12 years I spent in public education. It could have something to do with attending 13 schools during that time. The years I liked happened because of special teachers, the kind who know how to engage kids and who treat them like the little humans they are.
It's been popular in the press and in political circles for many years to claim that public education is failing. Standardized test scores are treated like the holy grail in this data-driven age. State legislatures pass laws to do things like mandate that students be taught their multiplication tables, implying that they are not learning that already, when of course they are. In a nod to tradition, people who don't know how to send an email pass laws that force instruction in things like cursive writing while eliminating jobs for people who teach art, music or who work in the library.
Conservatives aren't the only ones who denigrate education, but they're the people who want to take money from the school budget and give to shady for-profit and poorly supervised charter schools. They also favor giving to religious schools teaching that man and dinosaurs walked the earth together. In many southern states, segregation academies get public money for their mostly white student body, while the public schools in the same area are underfunded. Take a look at the study from Pro Publica that I've linked to.
Somehow the right-wingers have convinced people that there are teacher's unions everywhere that care nothing about children and that exist only to extort money from the government. In my home state of North Carolina, a law exists that forbids any public employee from joining a union. There are no negotiated contracts. There is no right to strike. Teachers and every other school employee takes what the state decides they should have, or they go work somewhere else. Many teachers already have a second job. I've seen them waiting tables, behind cash registers and at the plasma center. Our legislators even abolished higher pay grades for advanced degrees, while simultaneously complaining about teacher quality.
Of course, there is a bell curve when it comes to the competence of teachers, just like there is a bell curve in every other profession. Most teachers care a great deal about what their students are learning. I've listened to many, many excited explanations of new ways to teach first-graders addition or high schoolers chemistry. You can see the real passion in so many teachers and the work they put into their lessons. I've seen plenty of them stay at school long after they could have left for the day, just so they could provide extra help to kids who are behind.
The US as a whole is doing pretty damn well for a country that supposedly has a failing educational system. These days I work in higher ed at a private university and I don't hear our professors complaining about unprepared students in their classes. As someone who works in IT, I can also tell you that these young people are learning tech skills somewhere because keeping them on the straight and narrow path and out of places where they shouldn't go is a full-time job.
Next time you hear someone start the old "our schools are failing" routine, stop them and probe a little deeper. The chances are that they've bought into the big lie.
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Radarr - Movie collection manager for Legal Usenet and BitTorrent users
When I was a younger man, I'll admit to living
the pirate life for music and movies. I was around for the original
Napster and the birth of BitTorrent. That all came to a screeching halt
one weekend when I sat down at my computer and couldn't connect to the
internet. I called tech support, and the stern-sounding lady on the
phone told me to go to my computer and read what was on the screen. It
basically said, "If I ever download something illegally again, my
Internet will be turned off forever." There was one checkbox, and it
just said "OK." I had to check it to get my Internet back. That was the
sudden and dramatic end to my life on the high seas. Since then, I have
resisted using a VPN or other methods of accessing content illegally.
For one thing it adds a lot of friction and for another, in the
streaming age you can get just about anything you want without breaking
the bank.
There are legal torrent sites, most notably Archive.org. You can find others with a simple search.
A useful automated too to aid in downloading torrents via an RSS feed is Radarr. It also works on Usenet. Radarr's features include:
- Adding new movies with a variety of information, such as trailers, ratings, etc.
- Support for major platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, Raspberry Pi, etc.
- Can watch for better quality of the movies you have and do an automatic upgrade. eg. from DVD to Blu-Ray
- Automatic failed download handling will try another release if one fails
- Manual search so you can pick any release or to see why a release was not downloaded automatically
- Automatically searching for releases as well as RSS Sync
- Automatically importing downloaded movies
- Recognizing Special Editions, Director's Cut, etc.
- Identifying releases with hardcoded subs
- Identifying releases with AKA movie names
- SABnzbd, NZBGet, QBittorrent, Deluge, rTorrent, Transmission, uTorrent, and other download clients are supported and integrated
- Full integration with Kodi and Plex (notifications, library updates)
- Adding metadata such as posters and information for Kodi and others to use
- Advanced customization for profiles, such that Radarr will always download the copy you want
It takes some time and some skill to get Radarr set up correctly, but there are good instructions provided.. There is also extensive documentation..
Cafe Bustelo - For the Coffee People
Woah. There is definitely caffeine in here. I think I went overboard with that heaping tablespoon I dumped in my mug. It has flavor… AND THERE’S CAFFEINE. Goes down pretty smooth. Would be great if you needed to stay awake for a week straight and couldn’t afford cocaine.”
I'm not the kind of coffee person who knows the difference between beans or the correct time and temperature for roasting them. I'm the kind of coffee person who counts the first cup of the day as one of life's greatest pleasures. I know what I like. My favorite method for making a cup is the amazing Aeropress. If I have to, though, I'll even drink instant, and I'll enjoy it. Twenty years ago, I used to hang out with a schizophrenic poet who introduced me to the Latino style coffee, Cafe Bustelo. I've been drinking it ever since. It's a very dark, very strong brew that I think tastes exactly like coffee should. My Italian in-laws use it in a moka pot to make what they call "Black Coffee." You can get it in several varieties:
- Original
- Mexican
- Peruvian
- Brazilian
- Decaf (but why?)
Cafe Bustelo is available in all the usual form factors:
- Ground
- K-cups
- Original Nespresso pods
- Instant
- Pre-made cold brew
Cafe Bustelo- official website
What's the deal with Cafe Bustelo?? : r/Coffee
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Secrets and Confessions

If you have any familiarity with 12 Steps groups or if you've seen movies like 28 Days or TV shows like The Wire, then you may be familiar with two of the steps that scare the hell out of newcomers. They are the 4th and 5th Steps of the recovery program first laid out in the 1930s and followed by millions since.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
I'm not a believer in a supernatural God, and I've been sober a long time, so don't let the seemingly religious references throw you off. The principals behinds performing these two practices are beneficial. Rather than trying to forget the past, it's better to face up to it. People doing this take the opportunity to look at their resentments and to see what part they may have played in them. Every so often they find that they don't have any responsibility, such as in cases of abuse. Frequently with their beefs with exes, old bosses or family members, they find they did have a part to play. Even just figuring out the why of our relationship issues is helpful. Typically it comes down to fear. We are afraid we are not going to get something we want, or we are afraid we are going to lose something we already have. The most common way to manifest fear is through anger.
After we've taken the time to take a good look at ourselves, comes the next step, where we ask someone, maybe a trusted friend but more typically a respected person in the recovering community to hear us admit, out loud the list of things we've done wrong, that we feel guilty about and the part we have played in all the important difficult relationships in our life.
The first time I did this, I did it with an old-timer named Pete on a weekday afternoon. I was 22, but definitely an alcoholic in need of recovery. I was so scared I was shaking but over the course of an hour or so I laid it all out. Pete laughed at many of my confessions, giving examples from his life where he'd done the same thing, sometimes to a greater degree than I ever had.All my life I'd felt different from other people, terminally unique they call it.I found out that day that I wasn't all that different from I guy I really respected.
Since then, I've had more than one opportunity to hear other people admit their garbage. At the end, I always ask them "What is your deepest darkest secret?" You can see them struggle to let go of that secret, but they always do. It's always a relief not to ever have to carry that around with you anymore.
We are as sick as our secrets. They foster feelings of shame and guilt. They make us feel different and unworthy. People pay a lot of money for therapy to have someone hear them out. That's OK. Whatever it takes. I've been luck over the past 38 years to have a community of people who have listened to me without judgment when I've needed to get stuff off my chest.
I do the very best I can be today to live a life where I can be honest with the people around me. I don't lie to my wife or my boss or my children or my parents. I'd rather tell them something they would rather not hear than carry around a bunch of emotional baggage that secrets cause. You don't have to an alcoholic or an addict to use the principles behind this way of living. People have used this philosophy to get relief from all kinds of destructive behavior from gambling, to over eating to compulsive sexual behavior and co-dependent relationships. There is hope for everyone.
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What Happened on January 6th?

Many conservative Americans sport a decal on their vehicles of a black and white decal of the US flag with a single blue stripe running through it to symbolize that they "back the blue." That's the police. Despite that, on January 6th, 2021 a mob of Trump supporters attacked the officers guarding the US Capitol, spraying them with bear spray, ramming them with flag poles, hitting them with baseball bats and purposefully crushing them against the building. Approximately 150 officers were injured. One died the nest day. Two more committed suicide within a week. More than 1500 people have been convicted in court with sentences ranging up to 22 years. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump has declared his belief that 1/6.2021 was a day of great love. He's said that he intends to pardon those convicted with minutes of being inaugurated.
January 6 U.S. Capitol Attack | Background, Events, Criminal Charges, & Facts | Britannica
Fact checking Donald Trump's statements about Jan. 6 : NPR
The GOP's collective amnesia on January 6th, four years later - YouTube
Office of Public Affairs | Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the January 6 Attack on the Capitol | United States Department of Justice
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Resilio Sync - Secure, Private Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
The easiest way to share files between computers or with other users is through a commercial cloud service like iCloud, Dropbox or Google Drive. The problem with using those services is that your data passes through someone else's computer. If you are sharing apple pie recipes with your Aunt Sue, that's not a problem, but if your data is ultra-private documents like financial records, proprietary business information or the like, you should consider a product like Resilio Sync, formerly a commercial product, now free for personal use.
Resilio Sync allows you to sync data between computers and to selectively share files with others. There are clients for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android and several NAS configurations. You can "easily send one or more files to multiple recipients without sharing the whole folder or creating a permanent sync connection. Send photos, videos, movies, or any other large file directly to friends. Cloud free.
You can make sure sensitive data stays in your control. Change access permissions at any time using the ‘Advanced Folders’ feature. You can assign ownership to another user, revoke access, or modify read and write permissions on the fly. Sync has built in encryption.
Automatically sync folders to all your devices. Sync photos, videos, music, PDFs, docs or any other file types to/from your mobile phone, laptop, or other storage devices.
Using ‘Selective Sync’ feature, Sync will create placeholder files in your file-system that can be searched locally. Click to download only the files that you need, when you need them, without having to replicate entire folders on every device.
If you have bandwidth issues, you can set limits on download and upload speeds
Celebrities as Heroes

When I was in junior high school, my family frequently went to minor league baseball games at an old brick stadium in Gastonia, NC where we lived at the time. At that age, I lived and breathed the game, memorizing stats, collecting baseball cards and counting down the days until the game of the week came on television. As a promotion, the local team had a Hall of Fame player named Bob Feller appear one night to sign autographs and meet the fans.
Feller was the greatest pitcher of his era. He entered the major leagues when he was 17. Before he turned 21 he already had a 24-win season under his belt. He played the game from 1936-1956, with a four-year break to serve in the navy aboard the USS Alabama where he saw combat and rose to the rank of chief petty officer. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, receiving the highest percentage of votes than any player preceding him.
At the park that night, after he finished signing all the programs and talking to the fans, instead of leaving and going back to his hotel, he surprised me by going into the box seats to stay and watch the game. He was sitting all by himself and I just couldn't help myself. Even though I didn't have a ticket for that section, I went down there anyway and asked him if I could sit with him. He told me that I absolutely could. I talked his ear off. When I mentioned that I knew he was in the Navy, he really became animated, Despite all the accolades he'd gotten for his athletic career, he seemed to be more proud of being a sailor than for anything else. As the game progressed, he commented on the players and their skills, always complementing them. He was just a gem of a human being.
Defining someone as a hero is a curious practice when you think about it. The term gets used loosely. I usually consider a hero to be someone who has displayed some sort of bravery or overcome serious obstacles. In some cases, heroes are people who have gone above and beyond to help other people. There are many musicians, actors, and athletes whose talent I really admire, but I don't consider them to be heroic for that. In some cases, though, the people in the entertainment business have done other things that make them someone to look up to.
Pete Seeger worked to end segregation and performed for striking workers all over the country. When he was brought before Congress and accused of being a communist, he refused to name names when asked about the activities of others, unlike Ronald Reagan who squealed on his fellow actors.
Robin Williams made secret visits to hospitals to visit and entertain children, and was well known for using his connections to help other people. An avid cyclist, he once went out to help a stranger who had a flat on his bike in front of Williams home. When the problem turned out to be more complicated than that, Williams went and got one of his bikes and just gave it to the guy. I don't know if any of that rises to the level of heroism, but he was sure a nice person.
Other than Bob Feller, I haven't had many run-ins with celebrities. Maybe the closes I came was getting a call from Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran who wrote a book called Born on the Fourth pf July about his post-war experiences. Tom Cruise played him in the movie by the same name. Kovic, who was 100% a hero for numerous reasons, called me to encourage me in the work I was doing to organize veterans and military families in the early days of the Iraq War. I was blown away by his kindness.
We're all entitled to consider anyone we want as a hero. Just choose wisely and put some though into it.
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Making App Wishlists
Because I like checking out new to me software and writing about
it, I usually install something new just about every day. Reading
r/MacApps and lots of other software discovery sites is how I find new
apps. I've experimented with several different ways to keep lists of
apps I want to check out and here are a few of my favorites.
- Listy - A Private List Manager - this is good for both iOS apps and macOS apps. It tracks whether you've downloaded the app or not and gives you info on the app rating, category and developer as well as a link back to the app store.
- App Wish List & Price Tracker - this free iOS only app hasn't been updated since 2018 but it still works well via the share sheet. It has widgets and notifications for price changes and updates.
- AppRaven - Apps Gone Free (and more) - AppRaven lets you watch apps and developers and gives you notifications based on all kinds of criteria. There is a whole community of app fans using this app, writing reviews and giving folks a heads-up when apps have limited free offers. It has every app in the App Store for all Apple Platforms.
- Things 3 - This popular task management app also has features that serve list making well, including share sheet access, deep links, space for notes and more. If you use it for other things, it makes a good place for an apps wishlist. Works on Mac and iOS.
- App Wishlist Pro - An Apple shortcut that works on iOS and macOS
- Various Notes Apps - The benefit to using a notes app is that it keeps your data centralized, has plenty of space to post multiple links regarding one app (e.g., reviews) and doesn't limit you to just the App Store like some other choices.
HeyDingus! - Blogging as a Public Service

Before I ever bought a domain or opened an account on the modern social web, I discovered HeyDingus! while trying to find some information to solve a problem I was having. I spent the rest of the afternoon just browsing through the archives. When I was done I shot an email to the owner of the blog, Jarrod Blundy to let him know how much I appreciated his writing. Much to my surprise, I got a response. It turned out to be one of many exchanges I've had with Jarrod over the past year. He is a real role model for the ethos of what the IndieWeb should be IMHO - a mix of public service, autobiography and community building.
Here are a few Jarrod's helpful projects"
- Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - a collection of 36 hand-crafted shortcuts for macOS an iOS, some of which I use every single day. Jarrod also does freelance shortcuts if you need help.
- One a Month Club - If you are a blogger seeking support from your readers, don't reinvent the wheel. The One a Month Club is convenient and easy. I'm supporting six different bloggers with a monthly contribution, including Jarrod.
- 7 Things from HeyDingus - If you like link dumps as much as I do, be on the lookout for this weekly collection, many of which I have re-shared in my own links posts. Sometimes the collection is themed, sometimes it's not.
- Lists - HeyDingus - Some interesting writing on topics including an Apple Wish List, a Blogroll, a Podroll and Favorite Quotes. This page is a fun rabbit hole to fall down.
Follow Jarrod
💌 Email: jarrod@heydingus.net
🦣 Mastodon: @jarrod@micro.blog
📷 Instagram: @heyjb.me
🧵 Threads: @heyjb.me
🦋 Bluesky: @heyjb.me
📺 Trakt: @heyjarrod
🍿 Letterboxd: @jblundy
🎵 Apple Music: @heyjarrod
📚 Goodreads: @heyjarrod
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What Constitutes Your Perfect Day?

I actually have quite a few days that are very close to perfect. I don't need to win the lottery or be gifted a new car to achieve perfection. All I want is a day filled with things that are already my favorites and I am a happy man.
My perfect day starts early, like 4:30 am. Easing downstairs in a silent house to turn on a single lamp for a little soft lighting before dawn is OK with me. I'll ease into the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee. The first one of the day is always the best. While I drink it, I'll catch up with my personal email and social media. On a perfect day, i'll have messages from a few Internet friends, and definitely have some new pictures of some of my grandkids in my messages. Wonder Woman generally wakes up in a good mood and I'm always happy to see her make her way to the living room where we do most of our hanging out.
She will have a cop of coffee and a small glass of juice or half a banana before she goes for her run. It will be a short one and when she gets back and grabs a shower, we will go to the diner at the end of the street where we are regulars. The waitresses all know us and haven't offered us menus in years. I'll take yet another picture of my wife from across the table. That's part of the ritual. I have a couple hundred from inside that very restaurant.
When we get back home, we will hang out together. She reads or watches something on her iPad. I've got three blog posts to write, so I'll start working on them. After I finish the first one, I'll probably set my computer down for a few minutes and grab a quick nap. We will forage for something to eat in a couple of hours. By then, I will have heard from one or more of the kids or maybe my Mom. I love my family dearly and staying in touch means a lot to me.
After lunch would be a good time to see the three closest grandchildren. It doesn't take much to make them happy. Just a trip to Dairy Queen or going for a walk at the park is enough to satisfy them. The kids are great huggers, both to say hello and goodbye. That makes me happy.
When we get home, Wonder Woman and I will probably watch a movie, which we do in our spare bedroom, reclined on the bed where she rests her head on my chest so I can kiss the top of her head every couple of minutes or so. She will generally watch anything I pick out. I keep a running list and I just pick whatever sounds good at the moment.
Tonight we had a perfect day conversation that went like this:
Lou: You know what would be awesome?
WW: What?
Lou: If you order us some pizza!
WW: That would be awesome!
I don't have to cook AND I get pizza. That's perfect.
After dinner, I'll finish my daily blogging, stopping to watch the videos she plays for me on her iPad from the other end of the couch. Her favorite genre are videos making fun of men for doing typical man things. Tonight it was a guy who answered multiple trivia questions in a row but could not remember the text his wife sent him just hours before with a grocery request that included a picture of what she needed.
We will go to bed early on the perfect day, because unless we are driving back from a trip, we always go to bed early. My preferred ritual is to read blog posts in my RSS reader until I can't keep my eyes open. I sleep pretty good. I have a lot of perfect days.
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"Ooh Boy, You Nasty!" - Five Facts About Bathing

I've had some interesting bathing experiences in my life. In 1986, I spent a month in the Mojave Desert at Ft. Irwin while in the Army. I got one hot shower during the entire month and most of the cleaning I did was by pouring canteens of water over my head with its GI haircut. Some tankers that were there had a bucket shower they hung off the gun barrel of an M-1 Abrams. I though they were nuts standing under a slow drizzle of cold water buck naked for all the world to see.
In 2013, my wife and I spent five and half months hiking one of the US National Scenic trails. Showers were infrequent , averaging about once a week. No long distance hikers carry deodorant (too heavy) and the phrase "hiker stank" is no exaggeration. When hitch-hiking from the trail into town to buy food, we had more than one person suddenly roll down the windows "to let in some fresh air." Most daily cleaning was done standing beside a creek with a bandana and a few drops of Dr. Bonner's Pure Castile Soap - which some brave souls even used to brush their teeth.
Here are some facts about the history of bathing.
- The Romans were frequent bathers but they did it for social reasons rather than hygeine.
- The prevalence of the plague during the middle agescaused people to stop bathing for hundreds of yearsbecause they thought it opened up ones pores and let in disease.
- When bathing became popular in the US in the 1860s, baths were relegated to very quick dips in cold water
- In 2021 Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis made headlineswhen they admitted to being averse to soap and water and to only bathing their children when they were visibly dirty.
- The world's most expensive bathtubs are generally carved from a single piece of stone, with the record holder coming from a huge piece of petrified wood, valued at $1.9 million.
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This Week's Bookmarks - Using AI in Text, Trusting Software, Predictions, Cleaning Glasses, Like Everything More, Personality Assessment, Resolutions
Putting Mac Apps to Work - Image Management Workflow for Writers
In blogging and in creating instructional documents at work, I go
through plenty of screenshots, stock photography and open-source images
from the web. In the course of crafting a single blog post, I might use
four or five apps.
For screenshots, I use CleanShotX which I call from a keyboard shortcut or the menu bar. It also does annotation. The files are saved to my default screenshot folder that lives on a cloud drive so that I can readily access it from all my computers and devices.
When the file is saved, it activates Clop which optimizes the file size automatically. The optimized file is handed off to Dropover and then an Apple Shortcut (download link) runs that moves the file to another cloud folder, called "Optimized" and which also opens a Dropover shelf so that I can drag the file into place if my current working situation calls for it. Dropover also lets me rename the file, convert to another format and resize the file. I can even open the file in ImageOptim right from the shelf if I want to reduce the file size to a greater extent than Clop performed.
For images other than screenshots, they go straight to my downloads folder, where they get optimized by Clop and then moved to the "Optimized" folder by a shortcut ready for use.
Since I go through numerous images, I don't want my "Optimized" folder to get bloated, so I use Hazel to move files that are more than one day old. It sorts the files in two ways. Screenshots (which have a special string in the file name)are moved to a "Screenshots-Old" folder. The rest of the image files, which can be jpg, png, svg or webp get sorted by file extension and moved to an archive folder. Hazel does all this based on pre-configured rules, and it all happens automatically.
For images other than screenshots, they go straight to my downloads folder, where they get optimized by Clop and then moved to the "Optimized" folder by a shortcut ready for use.
My Computer Had Nice Things to Say About Me Today

You present as highly open to experience, continuously seeking out new technologies and workflows to optimize your productivity. You exhibit strong conscientiousness, meticulously documenting and sharing your findings with others. You are likely introverted, preferring to engage with the community through informative and educational style posts. There is no indication of emotional volatility or negativity, suggesting low neuroticism. You are extremely agreeable, as you are consistently helpful, polite and considerate in all your communications. This combination of traits drives you to discover and share the best tools and techniques for Mac and iOS users. You are likely very organized and detail oriented in all areas of your life. You might benefit from exploring your emotions more and being more tolerant of work flows that are not perfect..
Scanning my email for links to share is a daily habit. I post "This Week's Bookmarks" every weekend. That's a collection of random, but hopefully interesting, web pages I've collected over the preceding seven days. I'll post anything from recipes, to photo exhibits to anything that might someone say "whoa!" Today I found a site that will do a personality analysis of any Reddit user. I couldn't get my name typed in there fast enough. I've been on Reddit since 2006. Since I started blogging I post something there every day.
Your frequent posts and comments across multiple online platforms related to Mac apps, iOS apps, and Obsidian reveal a high level of online activity. The depth and detail of your posts further suggest a dedication to these topics and a proactive approach to sharing information.
As illustrated by the general summary above, my Reddit personality is the non-political, non-autobiographical side of me. That side comes through, I hope, in most places I go. Since the beginning of my interest in technology, dating back to the early 90s, I've enjoyed not just using a computer but finding ways to make computers do what i want them to do. The average person I encounter might be open to hearing an app recommendation or two, but I have seen too many people develop glazed eyes when I get wound up about my current list of cool things to share. That's what makes the Internet the best audience. People can opt in or out at their leisure.
You demonstrate resilience in your responses to dissenting opinions, offering logical explanations and defending your positions. This suggests a good ability to handle pressure and stress.
If you've ever spent much time on Reddit, you know it can be an extremely toxic environment if you feed the trolls. I've weathered my share of nasty comments from weirdos who are upset about software of all things. Examples include being called unethical because I use a VPN that advertises on YouTube (Nord). Anything that interferes with video watching gets vitriol. I regularly get accused of being paid to write positive reviews, as if all these poor indy developers out, there have the money from their 1.99 apps to hire writers. Some trolls call me a racist because I point out the unreasonable hatred faced by a certain Ukrainian software company from Russian provocateurs.
I'm going to disagree with the AI assessment that I am an introvert due to the "informative and educational" style of my posts. My real life personality can be a little outsized at times. I seldom like the things I like just a bit. If I'm into something, I'm really into it. I'd much rather share concrete information than make small talk, perform amateur psychological assessments of people I know or, God forbid, prattle on about the weather or lawn care. If nearby conversations devolve into chit-chat, i usually don't have much to say. When I met Wonder Woman, we spent months asking each other 'What's your favorite X". I think sharing your passions with another person is the best way to spend time with them.
I suppose I am organized and detail oriented in some ways. That doesn't translate into being neat and orderly in general, though. I manage to be a prolific blogger. I try to learn something new every day. Making those things a priority means I don't set aside time for things like washing my 20-year-old car or decluttering my full to bursting closet. Priorities, right?
You share your expertise without overt self-promotion, focusing on providing helpful information rather than boasting or comparing yourself to others.
I try not to use lines like "In my 30 years of experience" or "on the log I write that gets thousands of hits a day" because only an arrogant asshat would play that card on the first hand. I will sneak in humblebrag on a blog post, however. LOL
That last line in the overall summary — "You might benefit from exploring your emotions more and being more tolerant of work flows that are not perfect" stems from my ongoing exasperation at seemingly knowledgeable people who buy high-end computers but refuse to use helpful applications because they might "make my computer run slow." Everyone is entitled to a pet peeve and that's mine. Of course I have a whole rant about that.
This is quite possible the most self-centered blog post I have ever written. I'm just relieved that my computer thinks so highly of me.
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On This Day - Music, Sports, News, History for Every Day of the Year

If you are a history buff, or the kind of person who likes to send birthday greetings, or you are just fascinated with facts about your chosen area of interest, be it sports, music or the news, you can get what you need from this collection of websites. I habitually kick important information out of my brain so I can better remember trivia.
Here are a few facts about January 3rd I'll probably never forget:
- Aretha Franklin became the first woman elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987
- The Boston Red Sox got $125,000 for Babe Ruth in 1920, creating the 84-year Curse of the Bambino
- Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant his 95 Theses in 1496
- Apple Computer was incorporated on this day in 1977 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
- On This Day - Today in History, Film, Music and Sport
- On This Day - What Happened Today In History Britannica
- On-This-Day.com - Daily history, famous birthdays and music history
- List of days of the year - Wikipedia
- This Day In Music
- Today in Sports History - On This Day
- Today's Famous Birthdays - On This Day
- What was the No.1 song on the day you were born? | This Day In Music
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SwitchResX - Granular Resolution Control
As multiple monitors become more and more common and as the typical user is much more likely to use a laptop than a desktop, dealing with screen resolutions for different use cases becomes more and more problematic if your Mac is an "everything" device where you game, watch movies and get work done. SwitchResXi s a preference pane utility (with an additional menu bar interface) that has various useful functions for resolution management.
SwitchResX Functions
- Save desktop layouts for any resolution. No more having to rearrange things when connecting a second monitor.
- Automatically switch resolutions when launching any app - useful for games, video players, graphics apps and presentation software like PowerPoint
- Name resolutions according to their purpose (e.g., Gaming, Video, Presentation ) rather than trying to remember esoteric number combinations
- Enables a finer desktop grid than the native Mac grid for more precise arrangements
- Create custom resolutions based on your hardware capabilities
SwitchResX is available from the developer's website and comes with a 10-day free trial. A license for a single computer is $16.00.
I am not the developer. I do not know the developer. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact him directly through the information on his website.
I Love Snacking, Snacking Is My Favorite

When I'm hungry, I don't usually pine for steak or lobster. What I want is a plate of cheese and crackers, or a tin of smoked oysters, a handful of Chex Mix or some homemade pork skins. I shudder at the thought of going on a road trip without stopping by a convenience store for a Diet Coke and a bag of chips and quite possibly a Reese's Cup. Before bed, I am partial to a plate full of watermelon cubes either with some Feta cheese or sprinkled with Tajin, a Mexican spice that is great with fruit. I love an easy to peel Clementine at any time of day. I'm in my third consecutive year of eating crackers and Slim Jims every weekday morning.
I enjoy cooking, and I'm pretty good at it. Furthermore, I've studied nutrition extensively, so I know how and when to prepare special meals before endurance events and how to create tasty dishes from scratch. There are several places within a few miles of my home to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, open year round. As a dieting veteran, I'm able to accurately estimate macronutrient and calorie counts for most foods without relying on an app or a book. I'm married to a conscientious eater who is so in tune with her body that she managed to complete a 2200-mile-long distance hike weighing the same on Day 156 as she did on Day 1.
I wanted to establish those credentials before making my point. Whatever I put in my mouth, I do with full knowledge of the benefits or lack thereof. Left to my own whims, I would rather snack any day then cook. Having small treats throughout the day or in certain circumstances is basically what I live for. One of my favorite parts of any holiday season is the foods associated with them. There are other ritual times to snack, but really, I'm just about always ready.
A lot of this behavior is a holdover from when I was a constantly training endurance sports guy. I went for years eating six small meals a day to manage my weight and energy and to fuel for long bike rides or backpacking trips. Now that I'm older and not as active, these old habits wreak havoc on my waistline. It is an ongoing battle.
Although I enjoy some sweets. I prefer savory foods. When I completed the Appalachian Trail, I'd eaten so many Snickers and Payday bars that in the past 11 years, I haven't had either one of those previous favorites. I ate honeybuns smothered in peanut butter for breakfast on the trail. It was years before I ate another one, but I will occasionally have one now, preferably with some delicious gas station coffee.
I have a few unusual favorites. I enjoy a good pickled egg now and then. We have many Asian markets where I live and they just about all carry locally made kimchi, which is a Korean dish of fermented cabbage, onions and dakon radish with hot peppers. A few bites of that right of the jar does me just right. Indian mixed pickle is another delicacy. Order some as an app next time you go for some tikki masala. I like just about any kind of canned seafood. Sardines, kippers, mussels — I'll eat all of them. When I go camping, I eat my weight in beef jerky and GORP (good old raisins and peanuts). Oh, let me not forget pickled okra, I love that.
If you ever make your way to North Carolina and stop by the house, I promise to make you dinner, but if you just want to join me for a few snacks, that will be alright too.
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Apple Shortcuts for Rookies and Vets

If you are an iPhone or Mac user, you are probably aware of the Apple shortcuts whether use them or not. Using shortcuts requires two things, surmounting the learning curve to figure out how to use them and then remembering to do so. It's always one of those tech tasks people seem to have on their to do list but they never get around to actually accomplishing it. I use them every day on both my iPhone and my Mac. Here are some of my favorites:
- Generate alt text for images I post on social media
- Launch all five of the communication apps I use at work with a single click
- Restart my flaky VPN whenever it craps out
- Query ChatGPT (no app needed!)
- Save web pages to Obsidian
- Text my wife when I leave work
I use shortcuts for the App Store, Blogging, Messaging, Calendar, Social Media and many more areas. If you'd like to get started or improve your own use, here are some resources for you.
Home – Matthew Cassinelli - Matthew is a former Apple employee and an expert on what shortcuts cane do. He blogs about new developments and uses. I subscribe to his blog to get access to a huge catalog of premade shortcuts for both iOS and Mac.
RoutineHub • Your Community for Discovering, Sharing, and Version Controlling Apple Shortcuts - This is the largest collection of shortcuts on the Internet. They are all free and for anyone who is still nursing an old phone, they have a good back catalog of shortcuts for previous iOS versions.
Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - My Internet pal, Jarrod Blundy is a shortcut wiz and offers a great collection of free ones for you to try. He also creates custom shortcuts for hire and offers them to people who joining his "One a Month Club" and last year to people who helped jim reach his fund raising goal for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
Actions for Obsidian - Another Internet pal of mine, Carlo Zottman, is the developer behind Actions for Obsidian, which brings shortcuts to the great PKM app loved by many. I use Actions for Obsidian multiple times a day.
Stephen Robles - YouTube - If you want to learn how to fish, I mean make shortcuts, watch a few of Stephen's videos where he shows you to make them yourself.
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Replacicon - Customize Your Mac
Mac users are notorious for being sticklers for aesthetics. Luckily, customizing the appearance of your device is made easier by various third-party utilities. One of those is Replacicon, an outstanding app that maintains a constantly updating catalog of alternate icons for your installed applications.
The Replacicon interface shows an alphabetic list of your installed apps that you can filter in different ways, showing only the apps in your dock or by permanently hiding apps you don't want to see listed. It shows you each app's current and legacy icons, allowing you to hide the current icon if you choose. If you have apps installed outside the default locations, you can add those folders to the ones Replacicon searches.
If you have your own icons for apps, you can import those into Replacicon. You can also use Apple Intelligence to generate new icons if your machine has that capability. The app runs on Intel and Apple Silicon, and on macOS 13 and higher. Your alternate icon selections are maintained across app and OS updates automatically.
Replacicon is a $5.99 one-time purchase from the developer's website.
Internet Coffee Table Books - Photography for Everyone

Growing up, I loved looking through my Dad's collections of different Time-Life book sets. Dad's a big fan of military history so he had a set on World War Two, plus his own war, Vietnam. He also had the wonderful set on the old west, bound in genuine fake leather. My mother had a book with all of Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post covers and I practically memorized them. As an adult, I got to go to a Rockwell exhibit at our state's art museum in Raleigh, fittingly with my Mom. My own collection of photography based books is limited to gifts I've received, most of them centered around my love of classic rock music.
I look through my own photographs almost daily, both my run of the mill iPhone snapshots and the photos I've taken with my full-frame DSLR. I enjoy finding good collections online of all types of photography: street, wildlife, art etc. Here are a few I have to share.
- The 25 Photos That Defined the Modern Age - The New York Times
- 2024 Winners Gallery – The Epson International Pano Awards
- 2024 Winning Photographers – IPPAWARDS iPhone Photography Awards
- List of photographs considered the most important - Wikipedia
- 50+ Must-See Moments In History
- Winners 2024 — WORLD NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
- Upscale images for free Upscale by Sticker Mule
- Earth Day 2024 Witness our changing planet in 12 incredible satellite images Space
- Explore NASA's Best Photos of the Year
- James Lucas
- PSA 2024's Funniest Wildlife Photos Are Here. It's Comedy Break Time. ScienceAlert
- 2024 The Pictures of the Year
- 2024 The Pictures of the Year
- See the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners NPR
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On Framing and Language

When I was in high-school, I took Speech as an elective my senior year, thinking it would be an easy credit. I've never been shy. I thought my vocabulary was good enough to serve me adequately. I knew little about debate, extemporaneous speaking, expository speaking and the other forms of competition. A good portion of the course was taken up by the study of semantics, the study of meaning in language, including the interpretation of words, sentences, and text in context. It's a key component of understanding how linguistic signs and symbols convey specific concepts and ideas. I grokked it immediately. The class turned out to be a lot of fun. Although I didn't win any awards at the speech competitions we went to, I got a lot from the class. My formal education ended when I was 18, so I've had to make the most out of what I learned back then.
When I got involved in political activism and went through training to talk to people about issues, I learned how good the conservative movement had been at choosing the words to frame their positions on things. The prime example is the abortion issue. By calling their stance "pro-life" they assumed the moral high-ground. Who could be against life? The left has tried to label them as anti-choice and anti-abortion but their movement is still known by the name they choose for it. They did the same thing during the early stages of the Affordable Care Act debate when they coined the named "Death Panels." Most reflexive opponents of the act could not tell what exactly a death panel's job was, they just knew that Democrats wanted to kill them. Politicians worldwide use framing. The Brexit "leave" crowd made their argument about taking back control, emphasizing sovereignty and immigration limits.
The left has had some success with framing as well. One of the reasons that Dr. King was successful is the way he framed the struggle for civil rights in the context of American values like freedom and equality. People advocating for vaccines do better when they present their case that by getting vaccinated, you are protecting your loved ones rather than just giving survival stats.
Sometimes, people in tech take ownership over phrases that were once used as pejoratives, like laying claim to the titles geek and nerd. Most people with blogs choose to call themselves bloggers rather than writer as not to appear pretentious, even if they are, in fact, fantastic writers.
I love language. Sometimes I've had a hard time putting into practice that it's not what you say, but how you say it. It's been a 60-year learning process, but I am getting there.
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Quotemarks - Quote Notebook
I have collected quotes for years. When I'm reading a book, watching a movie or listening to music, if I come across a line I want to remember I write it down. Years ago, the developers at Lickability made an app called Quotebook for iOS that was specifically designed for quote collectors, but it was removed from the App Store in 2016 - although for anyone who still has a copy it is fully functional in iOS 18!
I've looked all over for a suitable replacement, and the closest I've found is Quotemarks from indy developer Christopher Hale. It is a free app with an IAP just to leave a tip. Quotemarks is great because it lets you import your collection from a CSV file. Anyone who already has a collection is saved from having to manually enter their quotes. The fields you can import include:
- Quote
- Author
- Tag
- Notes
- Date Added
I wish there was a field for the source, but you can use the notes field for that. Of course, you can add new quotes you find one at the time within the app.
Some nice touches with the program include:
- Automatic import of images of well-known authors
- Links to the bios of authors on Wikipedia
- Select the style of quotation marks to use (including none)
- Backup and restore
- Schedule quotes to appear on certain days in a widget
- Use the share sheet to export quotes
Quotemarks is an iOS app that runs in Macs with M-series chips. If you have an Intel Mac you will have to use it on an iPhone or iPad.
If you are looking for quotes to use with the app or for your own personal collection, I have shared my collection on GitHub as either a ZIP file or in individual Markdown notes readable by any text editor or for use in Obsidian.
I am not the developer. I don't know the developer. if you gave questions or suggestions, you can contact him using the information on his website.
Another good quotes manager is Thoughts - Inspiration Manager.
Dear Internet - A Letter to My Constant Companion

Dear Internet,
I know it's weird to be getting a letter when we spend so much time together, But I have a few things I need to share with you. None of it is too big a deal. The info will be yours to do with what you want. Let's get started.
First, I want to ask you to be nice to new folks when they enter a community. Every so often they don't know the unwritten rules under which we operate. Believe it or not, there are still grown adults who don't have much social media experience. Can you imagine how much courage it takes to get involved with us, considering our reputation? Just say hi to them and if they need constructive criticism, do it gently or offer it in a private message. If they ask questions that have easy answers, teach them how to fish by telling them how and where to look things up instead of being snarky and asking them if they ever heard of Google.
Let's all take steps this year to curate our experience. Let's try to use the tools that filter the stuff that stresses us out. Don't feed the trolls when it is so much easier to just block and hide them forever. If someone you have a relationship with has a bad hot take, maybe don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Give them a second chance. Perhaps even forgive them. If, instead, you discover that they have some disqualifying belief system, well, that's a different story. No one is going to ask you to be friends with bigots for the sake of harmony. Have standards and stick to them.
Try coming up with a helpful project this year. Hell, if it takes up too much time, charge a fee. I look at things like Robb Knight's Echofeed and Slash Pages, or the blog prompts from Scott Jones. Jedda and I started Blogroll.club. You could write book reviews like Alexandra or movie reviews like Matt Birchler. Try writing a tutorial on something you are good at. Makea weekly list of bookmarks to share with people. You can do this.
Lastly, be an advocate for the people who need advocates. You know exactly who I am talking about. It has become acceptable in this country to demonize and denigrate people who don't match the profile of the typical voter belonging to the majority party. We have a president-elect who told four members of the house, all women of color, to go back where they came from - and he wasn't talking about Minnesota and the Bronx. Members of the LGBT community are constantly being harassed and accused of things they don't do. The people who gather our food, mow our lawns, build our houses, process our meat and more are being terrorized by threats. Honest journalists who tell us when the emperor has no clothes are being threatened by the incoming FBI director. Even common people are being labeled as enemies from within for not being real Americans. Don't stand for any of it. Don't be silent. Silence favors the oppressor.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter. If you have any questions, just ask.
AI For Better or Worse

The jury is definitely still out on artificial intelligence. Is it a helpful tool or something the billionaire tech bros are going to use to extract more wealth from the working class? It's no secret that the hardware behind the technology consumes electricity and water for cooling like nothing that's ever come before it. One of the most popular AI companies, Perplexity, is not only ignoring long established Internet protocols to mine personal websites for data, its CEO offered to scab the jobs of striking tech workers from the New York Times.
On the other hand, regular people can now perform tasks they once would have had to outsource. That is what happens when technology arrives. Ask the carriage makes and buggy whip folks what happened when cars got here.
If I had a third hand, I'd point out that when an AI scapes my web page to answer a person's question without giving that person a link to wrote I wrote giving me any kind of credit, then the AI company is using me as unpaid labor and that won't stand.
Here is some information about the state of AI at the end of 2024.
Open Source Models are Improving When Compared to Proprietary Models
AI Generated Audio and Video is Here
Chatbot Arena: Free AI Chat to Compare & Test Best AI Chatbots
Products to Check Out
Lindy.ai — Meet Your AI Assistant
Suno - Make a Song About Anything
Google NotebookLM | Note Taking & Research Assistant Powered by AI
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Mac Automation Roundup
I'm a big fan of automation apps for macOS but I'll admit, even
the best ones can have a steep learning curve. If you've loaded up at
the App Store, you might not even know which app performs a task the
best since some of them have overlapping features. You might also have a
desire to get into Mac automation but the price of some of the apps
makes them an investment rather than a casual purchase. Here is a
roundup of information to help veterans and newcomers alike with
becoming more productive.
Keyboard Maestro
My Top 10
Keyboard Maestro Macros
Hazel
My
Favorite Actions for Hazel, the Preeminent File Management Software for
the Mac
Drafts
8 Use cases for
Drafts
Better Touch Tool
Better
Touch Tool Favorites
More Automation Tools
“Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” -Ray Bradbury, speaking to The New York Times
What's Your Favorite Decade?

Starting with the 1960s, I have now lived in or through seven different decades. I don't have many memories of the supposed decade of love other than the first moon landing and the ongoing war in Vietnam. From 1970 onward, all kinds of things are stuck in my mind. I've always had preternatural ability to remember facts and facts both from my own life and from the world at large as I've experienced it vicariously through the media.
Before I get into my favorite decade, let me first dissect my least favorite, that being the aughties, 2000-2009. The first year was marred by the Supreme Court essentially appointing everyone's favorite nepo baby frat boy as President of the United States. The year after that, the US was attacked by 19 Saudi Arabian terrorists, something that caused us to go to war with two countries that are not Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Gratuitous flag waving and war fever led to reelecting the frat boy, thousands of military dead and trillions of dollars wasted. About the only good thing to come out of the decade were some killer TV shows like The Sopranos and The Wire.
The ten-year span that I liked the best in the sense of it being an era was the 1970s. That’s the time period that saw me go from kindergarten age to high school. The music from the 70s has never been equaled in the rock era. Seminal albums from Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Carole King all came out in just one year, 1971. Many classic movies were released, including The Godfather, Rocky and Star Wars. Television classics like Roots, All in the Family and MASH played on over the air TV. In sports we had two Olympics that gave us stars like Mark Spitz and Sugar Ray Leonard. Baseball saw the Yankees return to prominence. Football saw great seasons by the Dolphins and Steelers among others.
Politically we saw the system work when Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Congress finally extended oversight over the FBI and CIA, ending decades of abuse. The draft and the Vietnam War ended. The nation elected an honorable man president in 1976.
The 70s were not perfect. There were tragedies like Kent State and the Greensboro Massacre. Inflation was rampant throughout the decade. The Iranian hostage crisis happened. Still, the US memorably celebrated its Bicentennial. By the end of the decade most of the last vestiges of segregation were gone.
I’m a personal fan of the current decade too but more for internal reasons than external ones. I’m happy the US isn’t at war. I’m happy that the biggest sports star in the US is Caitlyn Clark, a 22-year-old woman. It sucks that 14 out of 15 of the year’s biggest movies were sequels. Also, WTF is up with the music scene? Politically, the US is a cesspool. I’d rather get back to living under Nixon than suffer Trump for the next four years. At least Nixon did things like start the EPA and open relations with China.
I’d love to hear from you about your favorite decade.
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Reasons to Hate Space Karen

Even before Elon Musk appointed himself President of the United States, there were a great many reasons to dislike him from the way he treats women and workers, to the time he called a hero a "pedo guy" and more. If you need some facts and links, I'm happy to oblige.
'How Many Women Were Abused to Make That Tesla?'
Billionaire "Space Race" Is Doing Irreparable Harm to the Planet
In one tweet, Elon Musk captures the everyday sexism faced by women in STEM
Tesla’s construction workers at Texas gigafactory allege labor violations
The One Big Problem With Elon Musk’s Autism Announcement
Elon Musk Really Doesn't Like Mass Transit Systems He's Trying to Build
Kanye West: The World’s 100 Most Influential People by Elon Musk
Elon Musk Compares Justin Trudeau To Hitler In Bizarre Response To Canadian Trucker Protests
Tesla ordered to have Elon Musk delete anti-union tweet
Musk In Trouble After Fremont Factory Employees Test Positive For COVID-19
Elon Musk wins defamation case over 'pedo guy' tweet about caver
U.S. Department of Agriculture to Look Into Monkey Experiments Funded by Elon Musk's Neuralink
16 Valid Reasons Why People Love To Hate Elon Musk
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OpenVibe - Free Social Thread Aggregator
OpenVibe is a social media
aggregator for some of the decentralized networks that use Activity Pub,
Blockchain and the AT protocol. In this case, that means Bluesky,
Mastodon, Threads and Nostr. OpenVibe users can see a consolidated
timeline from all four services and when they post, the post is sent to
each service. You cal alternatively see the timeline from a single
service if you choose.
There are some unique benefits to using OpenVibe.
- If you have a comprehensive list of blocked words and phrases built on a single platform, you can use that list to moderate all the services used in the app.
- For apps that let you make custom moderation lists like Bluesky and Mastodon, you can choose to toggle those lists on or off.
- Not only are your feeds are consolidated, your notifications are too, divided into comments and mentions, follows, reposts and quotes and reactions.
- Your OpenVibe profile consolidates the number of your followers and followed accounts across all networks.
- You can choose the font you want to use with OpenVibe, plus choose light, dark or system for your theme.
- You can search across all four networks at once or any one of them for profile names of the contents of posts.
- Viewing a list of your followers in Bluesky and Mastodon offers you a chance to follow anyone back with a single click.
OpenVibe is an iPadOS app that runs on Mac desktops with Apple Silicon. If you have an Intel Mac, you will have to use it on an iPhone or iPad. You can download it for free from the App Store. There are no ads. The app requires no special macOS permissions and it does not sell user data.
I am not the developer. I don't know the developer, nor was I asked to write this post. If you have questions or suggestions, use the contact information on the App Store.
Remembering Jimmy Carter

I was 11 years old in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was running for president the first time. He had been the governor of Georgia, a state that borders my own (NC). All I had ever known about US presidents was that they were either bad people (Nixon) or boring (Ford). Carter was exciting. He was nice and famous for his big smile. He had been a farmer like my grandparents, who loved him.
During the Carter era my brother, sister and I traveled through Georgia with my grandparents to two shrines for Southern Democrats. The first was Warm Springs where FDR often vacationed to seek relief from the pain in his polio stricken limbs and where he died in 1944. The second shine was Plains, Jimmy Carter's home town where his somewhat ne-er-do-well brother Billy operated a gas station and his mother, Miss Lillian lived.
Richard Nixon was the first president I was aware of. I started reading newspapers as soon as I could read and my initial encounters with the political press were during the Watergate era. Not only were stories about the corruption in the Republican party always in the paper, the Watergate hearings were held broadcast live on every channel and like the geeky little kid I was, I watched them. I remember when Nixon resigned and how happy and relieved the adults in my were.
Life in America in the late 70s was rough. Inflation was as high as it had ever been. It started creeping upward during the Ford administration but it really skyrocketed after a while. The after affects of the Arab oil embargo were still having a dramatic affect on life in the US. Unpopular mandates like the 55 mph speed limit and the voluntary reduction of home heating use was implemented. Then the Iranians took over the US embassy in Tehran and took the staff hostage, triggering a crisis and eventually collusion with none other than Ronald Reagan. Yeah - that Ronald Reagan - the same one who started selling the Iranians weapons just a few years later.
I don't remember people disparaging President Carter during those years. Life was tough, but people believed that he cared, that he was facing problems head on and that he had a very hard job in very hard times. Most people felt like he had done a lot for world peace when he facilitated the Camp David Accords that resulted in a peace between Israel and Egypt that has lasted until this day.
Ted Kennedy, blind to the anything but his own personal ambition challenged an incumbent president from his own party in the 1980 election. Carter defeated him and polled well against Reagan until shortly before the election, being weighed down my Iran, primarily.
In the years since 1980, Carter has nearly achieved sainthood - a tough go for a Southern Baptist. It became fashionable to classify his presidency as a failure, although most people who repeat that have a difficult time articulating why or defending any reasons they put forth. Instead, we got the union busting, inflation riddled, tax-cutting for the rich, budget ballooning, arms to Iran puppet of the right-wing, Ronald Ray-Gun.
Since Jimmy Carter left the white house, his basic goodness and humanity has never, ever wavered. He has represented the US admirably and performed with unmatched wisdom in advocating for world health improvements that have saved millions of lives. The pictures of him volunteering for Habitat for Humanity into his 90s are famous.
I'm sad tonight to know that I'm going to be on a planet without Jimmy Carter on it for the first time ever.
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Bartender - Still Best in Class
For years, Bartender was one of the most highly recommended utility apps in the Mac space. There were many highly complementary recommended reviews in the tech press and from satisfied users. All of that came crashing to a halt in 2024 when the original developer cashed out and sold the app to new owners without anyone immediately disclosing the sale. Because menu mar managers like Bartender require screen recording permissions, security minded users were justifiably alarmed but the tin foil hat brigade lost their minds. All kinds of nefarious plots and schemes were pitched (the commies, spyware, price increases, subscriptions and more). Some people even accused the new owners of counterfeiting messages from the original dev. Telemetry was briefly introduced and then removed, sparking more tin-foil hattery.
Outside of the Reddit and perpetually online bubble, Bartender remained popular. On Setapp, the subscription app service with 1 million users, it is the number one most downloaded app. The reason for this is simple. Bartender is great, and it has been through several versions. I've used it non-stop for over a decade. I have over 40 menu bar apps running most of the time and it manages them without a hitch. The program is under active development and even more features are on the way.
What Makes Bartender So Good
Like other menu bar managers, Bartender allows you to select what is visible on your screen during normal operations. With a click on the Bartender menu, you can see a secondary display of icons, called the Bartender bar, which can also be summoned through a variety of user defined actions. You can also specify that certain icons never appear in either the menu bar or the Bartender bar.
Bartender allows you to make a number of aesthetic changes to the appearance of the menu bar, including borders, colors and corners.
You can create multiple presets containing different configuration of icons if you want to show and hide icons depending on your workflow. Any of those presets can contain groups of icons, basically a submenu. I group all of my cloud services into one of these.
Bartender can automatically load a preset using triggers. The current triggers are:
- Battery - trigger when on battery power or charging, or at a specific level.
- WiFi - trigger when connected/not connected to a WiFi network. Or when connected to a specific network
- Location - trigger when at a specific location.
- Time/Date - schedule when to trigger
- Icon Appearance - useful for icons like VPNs that change appearance when connected
You can choose icon spacing using three categories: normal spacing, small spacing, no spacing.
There is a search feature that lets you bring any of your menu bar icons into view. You can open it from the Bartender menu or from a hotkey.
If you would like to test Bartender, you can get a four week free trial at the app's website.
If you are still not convinced, but you need a menu bar manager, here are some more options"
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - 30 Years Later

Thirty years ago, writer John Berendt published a surprise non-fiction book that ended up spending a near record 216 weeks on The New York Times best seller list. The book was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, an account of the multiple trials of Jim Williams, a Savannah, Georgia antique dealer and a member of the local high society. Williams killed a local male prostitute in the study of Mercer House. The book's main character isn't really Williams. It is the Georgia city along with a variety of eccentric individuals.
My personal favorite was The Lady Chablis, a local transgender woman and well known club entertainer. She went on to play herself in Clint Eastwood's 1997 film version of the story.
Also featured in the book and the movie is Emma Kelly, a musician known as the Lady of 6,000 songs, so named by famous composer, Jonny Mercer. He couldn't name a song she couldn't play. He estimated that she knew 6K.
Minerva, a Gullah woman and renowned root doctor was the name given in the book and movie for a character based on Valerie Boles. She served as a conduit of local knowledge for Jim Williams during his trials.
The book was a delight to plow through . At times it reads like a novel but Berendt swears it is 99% true and 1% exaggeration. The film was not a hit, but I enjoyed it as well. John Cusack played one of his best roles in it. This weekend (December 28-29, 2024) I'm making my first trip Savannah with plans to see many of the locations described in the book.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) ⭐ 6.6 | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story
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I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.

This Week's Bookmarks - 3D Street Art, Marsala Recipe, Travel Photography, Real Credit Repair, Potato Salad, Life Hacks, Scientific Mysteries

Step Into the Illusion: Mind-Blowing 3D Street Art by Joe and Max | STREET ART UTOPIA
Alex’s chicken and mushroom marsala – smitten kitchen
Scott Kelby: Using Your iPhone As Your Second Camera for Travel Photography | #BHOPTIC - YouTube
Repair Your Credit Report with a Goodwill Letter | Lifehacker
A Potato Salad Trick | Cup of Jo
What’s your “I can’t believe other people don’t do this” hack? : r/AskReddit
Unexplainable podcast: 17 of the most astounding scientific mysteries | Vox
Enduring the Interstate

Today was one of those day when we just had to endure slings and arrows to get what we wanted. We traveled by car from our home in SE North Carolina down Interstate 95 to what will hopefully turn out to be the lovely city of Savannah, Georgia. I didn't even have to drive. I didn't have to navigate. The only thing I had to do was avoid irritating Wonder Woman, who had to fight with stop and go traffic for hours. What should have taken about three and a half hours instead took nearly six. We got off and on the Interstate more than once trying to find a less congested route to no avail.
Honestly, I didn't have it too bad, I wrote a couple of blog posts and half listened to some ultrarunning podcasts, while Wonder Woman, who ran 15 miles just before we left home, tried to find a comfortable sitting position for an aching hip with little success. I'd offered to drive but she elected not to take me up on the offer, not that I was insistent.
What little we saw of our destination city was nice. We are staying in the historic district. The streets are lined with giant old hardwoods. There are park like squares close by and many, many highly rated restaurants nearby. We had to cross the Eugene Talmedge Bridge over the Savannah River to get into town. I don't know what it is about Southern cities keeping the names of devout segregationists on public landmarks. Talmedge, who was governor in the 30s and 40s, pursued openly racist objectives such as restoring the white primary and enforcing segregation of the state universities. The bridge was built in 1991, and they named it for a sorry old cracker. That's a shame.
We plan to tour the city with a special side excursion to Bonaventure Cemetery. We are also going to load up on Dramamine and go out for a boat ride in hopes of encountering dolphins. Wonder Woman will undoubtably run from one end of town to the other. I'll look for stuff to write about. We will be recovered from the car ride from hell tomorrow, I'm sure.
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FileBrowser Pro - For File Intensive Network Connected Workflows
If you do a lot of file based work on iOS or you need to consistently connect to network and cloud servers from an iPhone or iPad, FileBrowser Professional might be the solution for you. With it, you can connect to the following cloud storage services
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Microsoft OneDrive for Business
- Microsoft SharePoint 2013 or later
- Box.com
- Google Drive (including TeamDrive)
- Dropbox (including Dropbox for Business)
- Backblaze B2
- Amazon S3
- pCloud
- Digital Ocean
- FileBase S3
- iDrive Cloud S3
- Wasabi S3
Additionally you can connect to
- WEBDAV servers
- FTP/FTPS servers
- SFTP server
- External compatible USB devices
FileBrowser Professional provides backup and sync between your device and any file storage option. You can access your Photo Library from within the app. It has a built-in file viewer for Office files, PDFs, images and video allowing you to access the files in place in their network location. You can open and edit files on the network without copying them to your device.
Other features include bookmarks for frequently accessed locations, a history of recently accessed files and batch renaming. You can select groups of files within a folder for different operations.
FileBrowser Professional is $14.99 on the App Store. It works on iPhone and iPad. It is MDM compatible and has custom features for mass deployment.
Obsidian Plugins for Writers

I do almost all of my personal and professional writing in Obsidian. In 2024, I’ve composed almost 500,000 words after clicking on the purple icon in my dock. Ranging from app reviews for Reddit and my blog to instructional documents for JIRA Confluence, I find Obsidian a great tool for composition and formatting. All of this is made easier by employing a few of the free and source plugins from the Obsidian ecosystem.
- Better Word Count - This plugin counts not only the total words in your current document, but also the word count in any section you make. Features include: Words, Characters, Sentences, Footnotes, and Pandoc Citations in current file, in your vault or typed today.
- Editing Toolbar - While I don’t find it difficult to write in markdown most of the time, having the toolbar available for more complex edits or edits with a lot of text is handy. is a plugin that provides a toolbar similar to Microsoft Word, and adds a minimal and user-friendly text editor modal for a smoother writing/editing experience .
- Language Tool Integration- Language tool is a commercial product with a free and a paid version. This plugin supports both versions and is a consistently excellent spelling and grammar checker.
- Readability Score - This small plugin analyzes all or part of a document using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formula. Your score appears in the status bar. It considers the length of the words and sentences you write.
- Text Generator - I am not a fan of anyone on the Internet using AI to create content. I don’t see an issue with using generative AI to come up with ideas, craft titles, create summaries of notes or to generate outlines. You can also use this plugin for proofreading, although there isn’t much benefit in employing it over Apple’s writing tools for macOS 18.2 users.
What Makes Us Who We Are?

I often wonder "Why am I like this?" and "Why do I feel this way? " Those aren't the most original questions. Philosophers and psychologists have been pondering them and attempting to answer them for a long time. Trying to figure out if it's nature (hereditary) or nurture (environment) can be a fun parlor game. Alternatively, the truly curious folks, who also have good insurance or a lot of money can undergo analysis in any one of several flavors, Freudian, Jungian and so forth.
I'd really like to know how I ended up such a political outlier. Both of my parents are Republicans, although my Mother was a Nixon despising liberal until she married a conservative a few years after I left home. Despite living in a red state, never attending college, serving in the military and working in manufacturing, plus being straight, white and cis-male, I'm an AOC, Bernie Sanders type, a loud one.
Some parts of who I am are definitely genetically influenced. Alcoholism, unfortunately, is a problem that's affected people in my family for more than just a single generation. Luckily for them, my siblings have a STOP button and can drink moderately or not at all when they choose. For me, only total abstinence from everything mood altering has been the only solution. I've never been bitter or jealous about it, though. I just didn't win the genetic lottery.
As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I consider myself to be the luckiest married man on the face of the earth. I absolutely lucked out when I met my wife. I was 47 and did not have a good track record when it came to maintaining a happy home life. Somehow, though, the two of us have not had a difficult time staying enamored of one another. We spend every possible minute together, and each of us takes care of the other in different ways. How, so late in life, did I acquire the skill to be happily married year after year?
Despite being an average student, I've always performed well on standardized tests. I failed half the math classes I took in high school but scored as high on the SAT as friends who got into engineering school. It was test scores and charm (or manipulation my Mom called it when she was mad) that allowed me to participate in programs for gifted kids in school, not my grades. My only contribution to my own mental development has been an insatiable life-long love of reading and being curious about a long list of things. My brother and sister also had great test scores, but they backed them up with good grades and post graduate studies at flagship universities. Our parents, the children of farmers, both have degrees now, but they didn't get them until their 30s. I tell my wife that I used to be smarter because I scored lower on mental acuity tests given to me in rehab than the ones I took as a teenager. In any case, I was blessed genetically with thinking skills I certainly didn't work for.
There are numerous other characteristics I'd like to have more insight into. I have the skills of an extrovert but the disposition of an introvert. What's that about? Like many, many people in recovery, my preferred sports (before my knees gave out) were all endurance based. Why? Why am I a procrastinator? What makes me go from calm to irate in a nanosecond, but only once or twice a year? I'll probably never get satisfactory answers to those questions, but I'll be OK with that. It will just give me something to think about.
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I Will Always Be an Unabashed Bob Dylan Fan

When I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, I loaded my iPhone 5 with music from my two favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, but only their songs recorded before 1970. They are the only two musicians I listened to for five months. I've heard all of those songs hundreds of times. I took a break from them for a while when I finished the trail, but not a long one.
It's difficult to write about Bob Dylan without repeating what a thousand other people have written. He is a uniquely talented individual whose lifetime of work is meaningful to a great many people. He's been able to do exactly what he wants to do for many decades because, well, he's Bob Fucking Dylan. Who is going to stop him?
Here are some links to explore for my fellow Friends of Bob.
Finally, A Good Bob Dylan Interview | Linkage
The Night Bob Dylan Went Electric | TIME
Chronicles, Volume One by Bob Dylan | Goodreads
Welcome Bob Dylan Fans! | The Bob Dylan Fan Club
Bob Dylan Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More |... | AllMusic
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Zero Duplicates Free Duplicate File Finder
Zero Duplicates is a free utility that finds and removes duplicate files based on some smart intelligence features. It finds identical files if the content, file extension and file size are the same regardless of the file name. It has built in safeguards which prevent you from using the program to delete all copies of a file. To use it, you specify the directories you want to scan before initiating a scan. It has a function to auto-select all duplicates in a folder; however, this failed to work for me during testing. Deleted files are removed from disk, not sent to the trash. The program does not scan Apple Photo libraries. You need to use other tools for that task.
Within the app, you can preview files and get size, path and file name information. It works with documents, images, videos, audio/music and more.
You can download Zero Duplicates for free on the Mac App Store. For more information, see the developer's web site.
Things I Don't Understand

I recently gave a big shoutout to my Internet friend, Annie on my links blog. The tag line for her Mastodon account is one of my favorite series of consecutive words on the Internet. "Wtf’ing every day, I’m basically a professional now." Every time I read that, I'm like, me too sister, me too. There is just so much about the world and about people's motivations that I just do not get. Here are a few examples.
Very Expensive Restaurants
I like to eat. You can take one look at me and figure that out without trying too hard. I also like to go out to eat because cooking is one of my chores and having someone else do it is a real treat. Furthermore, we are relatively debt free and have a comfortable income. Having established all that, I have no desire to frequent the most expensive places, either in town or on vacation. I feel absolutely pampered with a meal that costs between 30 dollars. Anything over that makes me feel like I'm throwing money away. Nothing, absolutely nothing, tastes that good. I don't care how fancy the inside of the establishment happens to be or where it is located. I like good service. Tipping well is a sign of good morals, and wait staff deserve to make a living wage. I just don't want to cough up 40 or 50 dollars to a server for a party of two (which I will do if the bill calls for it) because they work at a fancy joint when the waitress at Golden Corral busts her butt for a fraction of that. It doesn't make sense.
Mechanical Keyboards
My first computer was an IBM PC with a loud, heavy mechanical keyboard. It was in the days when we were all trained to die of thirst rather than risk spilling a Coke on our precious computer peripherals. These days I type a lot. I'm on a computer many, many hours a day. I have a definite preference for all my tech needs, but I've never once considered going back to the 80s or 90s experience for my keyboard needs. I don't like loud. I don't like heavy. I don't like expensive. I don't like dumb.
Voting Against One's Own Interest
When I see working-class people with Trump stickers on their cars, I wonder what their motivation is. Republican policies are undoubtedly hostile to average Americans. Huge cuts are made to social programs, education, health care and public services to cut taxes for corporations and the 1%. There is no demonstrable benefit to middle and lower income voters from GOP policies. The incoming administration wants to cut veterans benefits for all the working-class men and women who served in the costly Republican wars of the early 21st century. GOP senators are publishing op/ed pieces on how badly they would like to cut social security and medicare. Literally WTF is anyone with a mortgage and a car payment doing supporting these predatory plutocrats?
Refusing to Learn 21st Century Skills
I am continuing my recent campaign against technological illiteracy in the 21st century. I stepped on plenty of toes recently by mocking people who type GOOGLE into Google when they want to search for something. People told me it was none of my business and that it didn't hurt anything, and I came back at them with both barrels. Billions of dollars are lost every year in lost productivity because people with a proven educational track record of having the ability to learn are not held accountable for pretending to be stupid when it comes to using a computer. When automobiles adopt new technology, people learn how to use it. When you have to use a touch screen at Bojangles to get a sausage biscuit, people figure it out. Why can't they remember to restart their computer when they have a problem? What can't they learn how to find a file on their PC? No one makes them, that's why. Institutions would rather pay an IT department to hold the hands of otherwise competent adults than they would enforce basic tech competency on the workforce.
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Getting the Most from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is under attack from alt-right inhabitants Libs of Tik-Tok and Elon Musk among others, who are discouraging people from contributing financially. Wikipedia has invested in ways to encourage women and people of color to become contributing editors and this has raised conservative ire. Personally, I increased my annual contribution and publicized the attack on this great resource in every way I could. It goes without saying that Wikipedia is great. Here are a few ways to get even more out of it.
How to Download Wikipedia for Offline, At-Your-Fingertips Reading
Weeklypedia - a newsletter featuring the most ediited articles of the week
17 Tips To Get the Most From Wikipedia
How to Teach Students to Use Wikipedia | Edutopia
Wikipedia:Unusual articles - Wikipedia
Video: Become a Wikipedian in 30 minutes
Jimmy Wales on Why Wikipedia Is Still So Good
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Presentify - An App for the Future
When I started working in EdTech, instructors were still using transparency based overhead projectors. When interactive white boards arrived, incorporating connected computers for use instead of grease pencils and plastic, it felt like the future, but the high cost of the easily damaged devices coupled with the need for projectors using replaceable bulbs eventually left schools looking for a better alternative, which in most cases is a cheap, large screen television connected via HDMI. Additionally, since 2020, remote meeting software like Zoom, Google Meet and Teams is now used daily in the business world. Presenters who use either of these methodologies need an affordable and dependable tool to assist them with annotation and highlighting. Presentify by Ram Patra fits the bill.
Featured by Apple on three separate occasions, this app with its menu bar interface offers various shapes, colors and gradients, as well as text entry for anything on your display. Even with an app running in full-screen mode, you can toggle Presentify whenever you wish to add an element. If you wish, you can set any element to auto-erase. If you have an iPad connected via Sidecar, Astropad or Duet Display, you can use that as well as Wacom and other drawing tablets. Presentify has a whiteboard mode that you can use independently of other apps. Control of Presentify is achieved through and onscreen palette or keyboard controls.
The other primary feature of Presentify is mouse cursor highlighting, allowing you to change the color, size and opacity of the cursor, which can be used when it is moving or still.
Presentify is a one-time $6.99 purchase in the Mac App Store, with an IAP option to tip the developer. It is also available through Setapp. It's a well reviewed app that was received positively on Hacker News and Product Hunt.
My Holiday Was Pretty Good, How Was Yours?

Wonder Woman and I drove from a family celebration at her folks' house to my mom's on Christmas Eve, a two-hour trip. When we arrived, we spent about an hour visiting and giving reports on various family members. We also opened gifts. We gave mom a puzzle from her favorite company, one of several she received. She gave me a tech widget from my wish list (a dual hard drive bay). Wonder Woman got running socks from her preferred company, Injinji and a new robe. This morning I got up and hung out with Mom, answering tech questions, while Wonder Woman went on her run. When she returned, Mom made shrimp and grits, a Christmas tradition. She told us that she's been buying local shrimp from the same fisherman's family for 44 years.
We set out after breakfast to the home of my daughter and her family, a four and a half hour trip. As usual, Wonder Woman drove while I completed a couple of blog posts while we listened to various ultrarunning podcasts. I also may have taken a nap. I'm not sure. The weather was clear, and the sun was bright as we made our away across North Carolina's coastal plain and into the Piedmont.
When we arrived, we unloaded gifts and carried them to the door, where my six-year-old grandson was delighted to see us. We spent the day visiting and responding to messages from our other kids and grandkids. We got a video of the youngest granddaughter, who was happy to demonstrate to her mother that yes, Santa will indeed bring more than one gift if you ask. Our oldest granddaughter gave the whole family a gift by waiting until today to announce that she had been accepted to her first choice for college, Mary Washington University in Virginia.
We had one scare. Our grandson who has mobility issues, took a spill today and had to go to the emergency room. Luckily, the wait was not too bad, and he didn't break anything, so it worked out mostly OK. He's a stoic guy. One of the funniest moments of the holiday happened yesterday when he and I were in the living room of my mother-in-law's house. I thought I overheard Wonder Woman telling the story of one of my less than stellar moments from the kitchen, where she was making giant pans of lasagna with her sister. I asked my grandson, "Is you Nana talking junk about me in there?" He didn't crack a smile, but there was a gleam in his eye as he gave me three very solemn nods to affirm my suspicions.
Like many folks at my age, my greatest joy during the holidays is enjoying my family. A day like today was just about perfect. We had a fantastic Christmas dinner. We discussed the past and the future and laughed and laughed. My granddaughter made delicious deserts that fit everyone's diet requirements. For Wonder Woman and my daughter, that means gluten-free. For me, it just means that there is room on my plate.
In the coming days, I'll visit with my Dad to help him with some end of year computer tasks. I have family visiting from out of state, tickets for the new Bob Dylan biopic and reservations for a getaway in Savannah, Georgia before the New Year. My heart is full and I lack for nothing. Wherever you are, I hope you had the holiday you wanted and a time to enjoy whatever you enjoy. Merry Christmas from Wonder Woman and I!
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Who Was Born on Christmas Day?

Ok, we all know the Big Guy was born on Christmas Day. Actually, Jesus was likely born in the spring based on the dates for the Roman census, astronomical records and the time for lambs to be born in the field in Palestine. The celebration of his birth close to the winter solstice started hundreds of years after his death to pacify recently converted pagans. in any case, 1/365th of humanity was born on December 25. Here are a few of them.
Jimmy Buffett - 1946 “Margaritaville” Singer and Entrepreneur Jimmy Buffett
Annie Lennox - 1954 Annie Lennox in People Magazine
Sissy Spacek - 1949 Sissy Spacek bio
Justin Trudeau - 1971 Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Dido - 1971 Dido on Instagram
Barbara Mandrell - 1948 Barbara Mandrell Official Web Site
Humphrey Bogart - 1899
Bogie: A Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey Bogart
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Glympse Location Sharing - Free and Secure
Glympse
Glympse is a helpful iOS app that allows you to temporarily, safely and securely share your location with anyone who can receive text messages, regardless of platform. The message contains a URL to a map with an icon representing the locale of the sender. Although there is a paid option for organizations and commercial enterprises, the basic application is free and sufficient for the typical user.
To use Glympse, you use your contacts or enter a phone number, or multiple numbers. There is a space for a short message, e.g., "On the way". You choose the length of time to share your location and optionally, your destination.
You can save numbers and contacts in the Glympse app if you frequently communicate with the same people. For instance, I have my mom and daughter saved in the app since they both live a few hours away. If contacts both have Glympse installed, they can use the app to request that another user share their location.
Glympse also allows the creation of private groups. "Glympse Private Groups is a feature of the Glympse app that creates a private, invite-only Glympse Group. Members of a Group can share their location to and request the location (within the group) of other members. Any member of the group can see the location of everyone that is actively sharing within the group. They are perfect for sharing with family, carpool, teams, or a group of friends. The Group is private and not accessible by others, unless they are signed in to Glympse, and have received an invite from an existing member."
Then there are public groups. "Glympse Public Tags is a feature of the Glympse app that allows you to quickly view and share your location with multiple people on a single, shared Glympse map. Anyone who knows your Glympse Public Tag name can view the tag map and add themselves to the map. When you view a tag map, what you are seeing is a map of people who have chosen to join the Glympse Public Tag map."
I've used Glympse for years. I find it simple and easy to use for even technically challenged folks.
2025 Goals

Blogging
It's still fun to me to post every day, so I don't plan to stop. I may start writing more reviews of iOS apps to mix things up. I've thought for months that'd I'd stockpile some posts or at least some ideas, but nope. Every day is a blank sheet of paper. I just come up with topics at the last minute. I need to keep better records, because I've duplicated myself a couple of times.
Tech
In the past 12 months, I've updated all my Apple tech: laptop, iPhone, iPad and watch. I'm going to have to come up with a fancy excuse to get anything major in 2025. I'd love to get a Mac Mini or another machine to set up as a self-hosting device and/or Plex server. Unlike a lot of people, I operate solely from a laptop at home with no external monitor or keyboard. Wonder Woman would beat me to death if I insisted on setting up a desk in another room.
As a Citizen
I will continue to be an outspoken and vocal critic of the MAGA movement in every possible venue. I will not let pro-Trump speech go unchallenged in my presence. I'm not going to obsess over the news or watch the daily clown show, but I will stay informed. I will financially support civil liberties organizations
Professionally
My goal at work is to continue to show up as long as it's tolerable. I had to deal with a couple of crazy rude staff members this year. Time will tell if the administration adequately dealt with that behavior or if it will be culturally tolerated. I'm there to help people. I enjoy it, but I'm way past the point in my life where I have to deal with nutjobs.
Travel
I have a standing offer to go to the Alps with Wonder Woman, but I have to up my walking ability first. She knows my mountain climbing days are behind me but she wants me to be able to go for walks along river banks and around lake sides. I'd also like to make a trip to Austin where my son lives.
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Read annie's blog If You Want to Feel Good

When you spend time reading personal blogs, you start to get a real sense of some people's lives. You can follow along with their very human struggles to find a job, survive a death in the family, travel around the world, be happy with their partner and more. After a while, you really start to care. When your friends feel bad, you feel bad along with them. I love that part of the Internet.
Sometimes you just need a pep talk. You need some encouragement and advice from a wise friend, who, despite everything that's wrong with life in the modern era, always seems to be there to lift you up. You need that in your life. Well, you can have that in a single click by heading over to annie's blog, the frequently updated font of wisdom and joy freely given to the world at large by the inimitable Annie Mueller. Annie is funny, wise, very real and does a great job of lifting people up and being supportive. Her Mastodon bio states "Wtf’ing every day, I’m basically a professional now." I mean, come on, who can't relate to that?
Sample Posts
Joy is in the doing - annie's blog
Is it funny if I’m the only one laughing? - annie's blog
How to be confident - annie's blog
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Orange Card - Get Info Easily for Free
Orange card is a tiny (less than 1MB) free utility, available on
the Mac
App Store. It has a simple drag and drop (or paste) interface. It's
used to get extended metadata information from the objects you provide
it.
- Drives - Drag a Volume (Hard Disk, Solid State Disk, Compact Disk, Digital Video Disk, Network Server, etc.) onto OrangeCard to get detailed information:
- URL - Drop a HTTP or HTTPS URL and OrangeCard will send a HEAD request:
- Files and Photos - For photographs and other file formats with extensive metadata support, OrangeCard provides detailed information about the camera, dates and times, geographic location and more:
- Applications - App bundle info, all the file system attributes and spotlight metadata are displayed on the card when you drag in an application
Orange Card presents you with several small reports to copy out of the program. Choose the one you want
My Reaction To Your Reaction

As the calendar year winds down, so does the end of my first year of regular blogging since the 90s. I started off sporadically, mostly writing about tech. I eventually began reviewing apps, something I still do - every single day for the last 265 days. In March I branched out into more personal, autobiographical stuff. Because that still wasn't enough to keep me busy, and because I got a free domain name, I started a links blog in June to share the interesting things I find online, hoping to find other people who are interested in similar things. I didn't have any idea if what I had to say would click with anyone. Lot's of people I follow on Mastodon are comp sci majors involved in advanced development and I'm just a guy who hangs out in the server room. I also started blogging immediately after discovering the current iteration of the indyweb, without spending any time learning the culture or the unwritten rules. In the end, everything worked out. The developer folks with the giant brains appreciate hearing about cool apps. The indyweb at large seems to have one over arching rule, try to be a good person.
Based on Mastodon comments, emails and some rudimentary analytics, these are the posts that resonated the most with people this year..
Non-Toxic Masculinity - My most widely read post was about my journey as an adult to redefine was masculinity means.
When I was younger, I was attracted to traditional masculine roles and activities. I played high school football. I enlisted in the infantry. My first civilian job after that was working in a men's prison. It's not that I now feel like any of those are bad things, necessarily, but I don't need all that testosterone fueled chest thumping and the intimidation and violence that go with them in order to feel like I'm a real man, whatever that means.
The Perfect Blogger I like to wite about the experience of being a part of this community and y'all seem to like to read about it. This post got a lot of reaction.
It's not that I want to see myself in every blogger, quite the contrary. I want to read women bloggers, trans bloggers, POC, millennials, Gen Z, international writers. I want to make my world bigger.
My Partner - It really made me happy that people liked this appreciation piece I wrote about Wonder Woman, my wife, Carol. I frequently mention her and I wanted folks to know why. I think I succeeded.
She has good genes does my wife. She is a careful eater and a devout exerciser. In her late 50s with 13 grandchildren, she doesn't appear to have aged a day from when I met her at a hundred-mile bicycle ride in 2011
The most popular posts from my links blog were ones I compiled of topics that the blogging community appreciates.
For Linkblog Fans - a collection of places where folks share the best of the Interent with each other
OMG.LOL is the Best Thing on the Internet - the home of my Mastodon instance, /now page and about page is awesome and if you don't have an omg.lol account, you should.
Some Advice on Not Drinking - This was a no-judgment zone with some practical advice for anyone who wants to avoid alcohol for a night or for a lifetime, written from the heart.
For my fellow App Addicts, these were the most widely read reviews from 2024. People were really curious about these programs. This blog by far is the one people read the most with 280,000 hits since March. I'm happy to have the experience of writing for a wide audience and to share my hobby and experience with the world. I hope I have helped people.
FreeTube - Maybe the Most Underrated App | AppAddict
Applite - An App Store for Homebrew | AppAddict
ToyViewer - A Preview Replacment | AppAddict
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Rock and Roll Picture Show

Rock and Roll will never die, but it is it aging gracefully? That's an individual call. There are a lot of rock stars forever frozen in time, including the various members of the 27 club: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kim Morrison and Kurt Cobain among them. YouTube is full of vintage rock videos long predating the MTV eraof my youth.
We can always listen to the music of whatever defines rock and roll for us. In my case, that energy is best defined by one iconic album, Back in Black by Australian rockers AC/DC,. But rock is a visual spectacle as well as an aural one. Many of us had photos of our favorite rock stars adorning our walls at some point in our lives. In my case, the four color 8x10 photosof John, Paul, George and Ringo that were included with the White Album stared down at me all through my high school years.
Whenever I want to lose myself in nostalgia, I put on a classic album from one of my favorite bands and spend some time looking through collections of photos from the best best entertainment photographers of all time, who had dream jobs following bands around, going to concerts and getting paid for it!
Before They Were Famous - Over 150 Rock Star Yearbook Photos
900+ Best ROCK STARS ideas | rock and roll, musician, rock music
The Most Iconic Moments in Rock and Roll Photography
Clapton, Zappa, Elton John: Photos of Rock Stars With Their Parents
Home | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
23 Iconic Pictures Of Rock 'N' Roll's Greatest Performers
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Bridges Link Sharing
For anyone who collects and shares links regularly, Bridges Link Sharing is a great
tool to increase productivity by making the process easier. If you are
collecting a list of apps to share on Reddit or links for a blog post,
news letter or bibliography, this is a great tool to have.
You can add links to Bridges through the share sheet or the program's interface. When you save a link, you can accept the default title or create one of your own. Links are saved into folders which are housed in collections for a more granular differentiation. In the Bridges interface, you see a rich preview of the page, its favicon and hero image. It is possible to preview the entire saved page within the app.
When you're ready to export links, you can do it one at the time or by folder. The export choices are:
- Hyperlink
- Markdown
- JSON
- HTML
- URL
There is also an iOS app for Bridges (priced separately) and all the data resides in a shared secure iCloud folder and syncs between devices. Bridges is $1.99 on the Mac App Store.
Opting Out of Pop Culture

Disclaimer: I do not think people who have a lot of pop-culture knowledge are bad or that they are wrong for being familiar with things I know nothing to little about. Don't @ me.
I will admit to being mostly ignorant of pop culture, mostly because of avoidance. I don't think I've watched a network television show since season 2 of Survivor, and that's been more than twenty years ago. Furthermore, I haven't listened to a commercial radio station by my choice since high school. I was excited when Christopher Reeves made the first Superman movie in the 80s, but I've just about totally opted out of the entire Marvel Comic Universe. This means I've missed most, if not all, the top-grossing movies of all time.
I'm not a total cultural Luddite. We subscribe to most of the streaming channels and regularly watch them, but I opt for as much British TV as I can get (but not Doctor Who). I never watch the Superbowl or the World Series or the NBA Finals. The best I can do is catch a few stages of the Tour de France every July. I recently saw Gladiator 2 and today, Wonder Woman bought us tickets to see the new Bob Dylan biopic starring that kid they hold lookalike contests to match.
I rarely read books published within the last year unless I receive one as a gift. Beyond that, I love to read book reviews and keep up with what's hot but surfing the Internet has ruined my concentration skills and sitting still with a novel is just an advanced form of torture these days. I find a lot of modern fiction to be pretentious and difficult to read anyway. I'd rather stick with golden age science fiction or a good detective novel.I enjoy non-fiction, but that's hardly pop culture, is it?
What interests me not at all is celebrity news and gossip. I do not care one whit who is married to whom. I might pay attention if one of them says something political, just to make sure I don't give a conservative any of my money or brain space. So yes, I know about James Woods, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammar, and people like that. I don't like them. I like folks like Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé who, although they probably have no clue anymore what regular people are like, are still loyal to us when it comes to our country's leadership.
The closest I get to discovering new music is through Apple Music playlists. The genres I like are (other than classic rock) Americana, Alt-Country and Folk. Occasionally, they'll add in a group new to me or songs from after I stopped buying music, which was approximately 2006. Wonder Woman makes me listen to Nickelback and that red-headed English guy and various late-stage music that I occasionally enjoy, but not enough to learn anything about them.
Don't try to talk to me about super-hero movies or any of the other franchise series like Mission Impossible of the one where Vin Diesel drives cars. My eyes will glaze over, and I will move away from you. I don't know anything about Harry Potter apart from that the woman who wrote the books is a TERF bully who picks on Olympic athletes. I can possibly name one or two people from YouTube (Mr. Beast and PewDiePie)and one from TikTok (Gerron, the funny Irish guy). These days, I hardly even know any podcasters because I no longer have a commute where I can listen to what they produce.
I hope we can still be friends.
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Feedle - IndyWeb Information that Comes to You

I couldn't find an estimate of how many personal, independent bloggers there are who are active right now across all the many available platforms: Micro.blog, Bear, Scribbles, Pika, Tumblr, Blogger, Write.as and many, many WordPress sites. There are directories that list various blogs, like Blogroll.club, a project I work on with JCProbably. You are welcome to submit your blog there if you'd like to be listed.
You should also submit your blog to Feedle, a search engine just for independent blogs and podcasts. Even if you aren't a blogger, Feedle is a great resource to find information from experts in many fields who aren't trying to sell you anything. If you have an interest, chances are someone is blogging about it. Every search at Feedle also generates an RSS feed you can subscribe to in your reader of choice, so that the articles come to you instead of you having to look for them. Every time someone posts about whatever you are interested in, the post will be added to your reader.
Feedle also has a few ready made pages and feeds you might want to bookmark. Here is how they describe them:
- Top Stories - This is a collection of good, thought-provoking writing from the blogs and podcasts we have in our index. Discovered and carefully curated by our in-house AI tools. Whether a new take on a classic topic or a fresh voice on a trending issue, you will find something interesting to read here.
- Digital Crossroads- Digital Crossroads is a mishmash of the coolest updates, deep dives, and quirky insights from across the digital realm. We cover topics like RSS, the Fediverse, and the latest and greatest in the world of social media. Crossroads is for anyone who's ever been curious about the behind-the-scenes of the Internet, the future of online privacy, or just loves a good tech tale.
- Good News - Good News is our dedicated feed championing solutions-oriented journalism. Committed to countering the negativity prevalent in mainstream media, we spotlight innovative solutions, technical advancements, and human rights successes. By curating news with positive global impacts, we aim to foster informed optimism among readers, emphasizing real-world solutions and achievements rather than mere feel-good stories.
- Hacker News Front Page - Hacker News is the golden standard when it comes to sharing interesting links on the Internet. However, not all of those are read-worthy. We decided to do something about it. This page contains a selection of articles that hit the front page of Hacker News and are worth your reading time and attention.
Universal and Cross Platform Apps
The apps on this list are either free or buy once and use on
multiple platforms with just a couple of exceptions. The links are to
reviews of the apps that contain pricing information and download links
either to the developer's website of the App Store. (or both)
- Clipboard Fusion - The Windows to iPhone Solution
- Text Shot
- Ivory for Mastodon by Tapbots
- Streaks: The Classic Habit Tracker
- MusicBox : Read-It-Later for Music
- Scrap Paper
- Sequel Entertainment Database
- Keka: Free File Compression/DeCompression
- Due, A Hybrid Reminders Alarm Clock App
- AppRaven - Apps Gone Free (and more)
- Listy - A Private List Manager
- Lockdown Privacy Desktop
- Just Press Record
- iA Writer
- Zavala - Free, Open-Source Outliner for Mac, iPhone, iPad
- MusicHarbor - The New Release Finder
- Day One Is Popular for a Reason
- AnyList for Recipes, Shopping and More
- Play: Save Videos, Watch Later
- Cryptomator Free and Open Source Cloud Encryption
- GoodLinks
- NextDNS for Mac
- Things 3, Maybe the Pinnacle in App Design
- Try PDF Gear, It's Good, It's Free
- Apple Password App Is OK I Guess
- Mind Node for Mind Maps
- Yonks - A Well Designed Day Counter
- Elephas Did What Others Wouldn't
- Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT
- Fedica - Post to Multiple Social Networks at Once, On a Schedule - For Free
- Kiano - A Unique Image Sorter and Viewer for Apple Photos
- Scratchpad - Floating Notes But Better
- Ente Auth - The Free Authy Replacement for Your Mac and iPhone
- Cronica - A Free, Privacy Focused Media Tracker for Mac and iOS
- Access: Secure Passwords Companion
The Joys of Being a Grownup

I cringe whenever I hear some uninformed person going on and on about how easy people in prison have it. “They have it made. They get three hots and a cot and free medical care!” Never mind all the danger, the loss of freedom and the monotony, one thing prison does is infantilize the incarcerated. It takes away many of the privileges of adulthood.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be grown so badly. I loved talking to adults and hanging out with them when I could. Being an adult looked like the greatest thing in the world. You escaped from the dictatorship of your parents and your school, and you got to do whatever you want. I could not wait. I didn't even make it to the end of my senior year of high school under the umbrella of my family. Furthermore, I joined the military and left for basic training nine days after I graduated. Of course, that experience didn't involve a lot of freedom, but you definitely got treated like an adult. I got married a week after I finished that experience and by the end of the year, I had my own place, an income, and the freedom I always wanted.
Of course, commensurate with freedom comes responsibility, but I'm feeling hedonistic tonight, so I am concentrating on the freedom aspect of it. The true freedom doesn't come until your kids are out of the house and self-supporting. In fact, I would say that true freedom doesn't really occur until near the end of your days as a wage slave.
As I was nearing the end of my career, I'd been at my job for over a quarter of a century. I earned the maximum number of annual leave days each year that one can earn, and I never, ever, ever let any of those days go unused. I also had a huge number of sick days on the balance sheet. Every morning, I had the freedom to decide, “Do I want to go to work today?” I wasn't in the habit of abusing my privilege. I had people I cared about relying on me, but I knew in the back of my head that I could have a mental health day whenever I needed.
Other wonderful adult privileges I appreciate to this day or deciding when I want to go to sleep and when I wish to wake up. I had an enforced bedtime past my 18th birthday, and I hated it. I love to read, and being able to continue a book at night in a dark house while everyone else is sleeping is just divine. Likewise, although I do have to be at work on time, I can still get up as early as I want to be on my computer or sleep until the last minute. Nobody is the boss of me! We have to be grateful for things like that after being mandated by parents, our children and other circumstances.
Unlike prison inmates or soldiers, I can choose to wear whatever I want. I do the Steve Jobs thing where in public I go with the same style of pants and a black shirt every day. It's not a uniform, it's just easy, and I've been like that for years. At home, I opt for comfort and tend to hold on to shorts and sweatpants until they disintegrate.
Oh — there's food too. I grew up in one of those “you have to eat everything on your plate” houses. There were only a few things I didn't care for, but my Mom made them anyway. I haven't had to eat a serving of green English peas since 1979. I'll never eat them again, either. I don't even have to worry about being a good example to my kids anymore. I can have cereal for supper and pizza for breakfast and no one is going to stop me because I am a gown-ass man and I can do what I want, and I love it.
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Use AI When It Can Help You - On the Cheap

I'm not a heavy user of AI. I only occasionally have ways to make use of it in my job and hobbies. I have better things to fpo than to sit around thinking of things for LLMs to do more for me. There are some times, however, when I have had an occasion to use it. I use the advanced models of ChatGPT, but I don't pay 15, billed in three separate payments of $5 each.
My suggestion to you is that you set up a pre-paid account with OpenAI. All it takes is $10 . You can set limits on your consumption if it makes you feel better, but it isn't needed. Once you set up an account, you can generate API keys to use with all kinds of software and services to use the advanced and any new models. Many apps are essentially free when you use your own key.
How can I set up prepaid billing? | OpenAI Help Center
Once you have your account set up, here is how can you get an API key to use elsewhere
How To Get Your API Key For OpenAI
Some problems OpenAI has solved for me:
- Wrote a Python script today that edited 500+ markdown files (my imported Raindrop.io bookmarks) from my Obsidian vault. It moved text in the form of an inline properties field for URLs from the body of the note into the YAML front matter. I knew next to nothing about Python.
- Wrote a Python script tp convert a 300-line CSV file of quotes I exported from a program into 300 markdown files with the quote, the author and the associated tags.
- Took a list of Mastodon user names and converted them to Markdown link back to the user's home instance and profile.
Some apps you can use your key with include:
MacTracker - Can You Call Yourself a Fanboy If You Don't Have This Installed?
When I began my career in Mac support, my first task was replacing hard drives in hundreds of Mac LC 575s along with adding an Ethernet card because we were getting Internet access in every classroom. It was a heady time. The new computers we were purchasing were Bondi Blue first generation G3 iMacs. Having come from the PC world, I needed reference material for all the new hardware I was being presented. One of my co-workers told me about MacTracker and for the last quarter of a century I've had a copy of this great app installed on every Mac I have ever owned or been assigned.
MacTracker is a stand-alone hardware and software database of every Mac model that's even been made. It gives you info on:
- processor speed
- memory
- graphic cards
- supported OS versions
- price
- storage
- expansion options
MacTracker provides information on more than just laptops, desktops and servers. It also covers:
- iPhone
- iPad
- Apple Watch and
- Apple Vision Pro
- Newton
- Apple TV
- Apple accessories
- audio displays
- modems
- printers scanners
- storage
- Wi-Fi products
- operating systems
If you have even a passing interest in Mac history, you owe it to yourself to download and peruse this free app. If you are considering tinkering with vintage models, you definitely need this. The program lets you add computers to a section called "My Models" if you want to compare the different Macs you own or have used. It has limited serial number lookups if you are unsure of the model you are working on. You can link to MacTracker from other apps. Each model listed has information on whether it is considered still in support, vintage or obsolete.
I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.



This Week's Bookmarks - Reading Skills, Holiday Recipe, Tech CEOs, Pitchforks and the Plutocracy, Photos of the Year, News Without Clickbait, See How Your Potential Neighbors Vote

Good at Reading? Your Brain May Be Structured Differently | WIRED
Crock Pot Cranberry Chicken Curry - Destination Delish
Tech’s benevolent-dictator-for-life to authoritarian pipeline
The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats - POLITICO Magazine
Associated Press 100 Photos of 2024: An epic catalog of humanity | AP News
Brevity | News Without Anxiety
See your neighbors' political leanings on the new real estate platform Oyssey - Axios Miami
My Internet Culture War of 2024

My online persona (which is the same persona I am IRL) is a man who loves three things: technology, his wife and social justice. I mention all three of those things with some frequency, although tech is the only thing I do much consistent long form writing about. Aside from an occasional blog post, my political discourse is usually in the form of memes or micro-posts of 300 words or fewer. I'm often speaking to an audience of fellow travelers, rather than trying to convert Hitler's children. I don't expect many conservative people to even read what I write unless we established a relationship around something else that is strong enough to survive my low opinion of the MAGA crowd.
Mastodon is where I spend most of my social media time, having made nearly 6,500 posts since I joined in January. I cross post most of what I write to Facebook, Bluesky and Threads since I want to promote my writing to as big an audience as I can. I've been on Facebook for 16 years. I stay there mostly to keep in touch with family, although I have numerous friends because of a viral post I had in 2017. It's a horrible place run by a horrible man. I acknowledge that. I hope that Bluesky continues to grow. It's a good place to interact with people outside the advanced tech and blogging crowd that I've met on Mastodon. I joined Threads on the first day, like 18 million other people. I spend very little time there because I don't like the algorithm. The posts I see are not interesting to me, and I don't have the time and energy to do much more than cross post there.
Today, I made an observation about Elon Musk's growing influence over the Republican Party. He threatened a group of Republican House members if they supported a bi-partisan bill that the Speaker had agreed to that would have ended the budget stand-off. The bill contained disaster relief funds that are much needed in my home state, NC, which received $16 Billion is damage from a hurricane in October. What I wrote touched a nerve on both Meta platforms, and I had hundreds of people react and comment on it.
Here's what I said — Elon Musk took actions yesterday that cancelled Hurricane Helene relief for Western North Carolina.
I got lots of support because as I said, most MAGAts long ago should have ignored me because of the vitriol I throw in their direction. Surprisingly, though, there were still plenty of offended people who Meta thought needed to read Lou Plummer's take on the Washington cesspool today.
Their posts were just about all the same:
Nothing in Washington is Trump's fault because he hasn't taken office yet.
I made the whole thing up, and Musk did no such thing.
I am an idiot who believes what is reported by the media.
What was much worse were the nasty comments from Democrats who live in safe blue states. These people seem to think that 100% of the citizens of red states have Trump flags in their yards. They said things like:
It serves NC right because they voted for him
I hope NC likes what they caused. I have no sympathy for any of them.
What the hell? NC voted for Obama in 2008. We have a had a Democratic governor for the last eight years and just elected another one. The same goes for the attorney general's office and other statewide races. A lot of what has happened here is due to gerrymandering and voter suppression. Our GOP controlled legislature has passed numerous laws that have been overturned in the courts and backtracked on others, like the nation's first bathroom bill that cost the state billions of dollars in lost revenue because of boycotts.
There are people who somehow think they have progressive values, yet have no sympathy or feelings of solidarity with those of us fighting the good fight in southern and rural states. I was mocked and ridiculed by them today, and it stung a bit. I don't give a shit what any Republican thinks of me, but I expected more from the stereotypical coastal elites than I got today. Not to belittle a point, but there is truly a difference between a progressive and a liberal. Today was not a good day for one of those groups.
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Meta Collection of The Best of 2024 Lists

One of the best parts of December is the variety of "Best of" lists. Here are collections for TV shows, movies, podcasts, books and albums. Enjoy!
Television
- Best TV Shows 2024: 'Lioness,' 'Shrinking' and More
- The 25 best TV shows of 2024
- Best TV Shows This Year - Metacritic
Movies
- The 50 Best Movies of 2024, According to IndieWire Critics Poll
- Best Movies to Stream at Home (2024) | Rotten Tomatoes
- The 40 Best Movies of 2024
Podcasts
- The Very Best Podcasts of 2024
- The Best Podcasts of 2024 | The New Yorker
- Top Best Individual Episode: Podcasts | The Webby Awards
Books
- The Best Books of 2024 | Best Books of the Year | Barnes & Noble®
- The Best Books of 2024 | The New Yorker
- Best of 2024 | Kirkus Reviews
Albums
Flyleaf - An Elegant Read It Later Solution
There are lots of read it later apps and services available for
Mac users. Some, like Instapaper and Pocket require you to create an
account and in return give you web access to your saved articles.
Others, like Goodlinks don't
have web access but offer you more privacy by syncing your saved
articles through iCloud. A relatively new and rather elegant addition to
this space is Flyleaf
by Max Melzer.
Flyleaf strips everything from web pages except the text of the article and images. It provides an interface similar to the Kindle experience by paginating articles and letting you move through them by swiping. If you prefer scrolling, you can turn the option off. For those into aesthetics, Flyleaf has themes, some of which are behind a paywall. It also lets you control the line spacing, font, margins and alignment (justified text or not).
If you currently use Goodlinks, Instapaper or Later, you can import your current collection into Flyleaf. Flyleaf also has an export feature to import into other apps. Your list of saved articles has various display options, including publication name, reading time, article image, and your reading progress. You can choose to see just a list of titles or a long or short summary of the article. For automation fans, Flyleaf has Shortcuts and x-callback URL support. Articles in Flyleaf are searchable. You can archive them when your done reading and also mark them as favorites to find again quickly.
Flyleaf is an iPad app that runs on Macs with Apple Silicon. If you gave an Intel machine, you'll have to use it on an iOS device.
Everything in Flyleaf is free to use with two exceptions, extra themes and tagging. If you want those features, a subscription is required. It's $2.00 mo/$17.00 yr, but in all honesty, those are such minor features for most people that the primary reason for subscribing is to support the developer.
Soothing Activities

I can understand why so many people enjoy needle work on things like counted cross stitch or knitting. It takes up time. It requires some concentration, but not enough to give you a headache. When you're done, you have something tangible to look at. I get my groove on not by stitching but by certain kinds of organizing. I'm sure Wonder Woman wishes my organizing preference were linen closets and so forth. It's not. This is not a post on making productivity your hobby.
When I was growing up, I collected comic books and baseball cards. When it came to comics, I enjoyed three categories: Archie, Richie Rich and anything made by DC: Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern etc. My younger brother and I decided to have a joint collection. We'd spread comics on the floor and sort them by title and then by the individual number the publisher assigned to them. Some stacks were tall. Action Comics was where Superman got his start. It had been continuously in print since the 30s. Detective Comics, Batman's home, was the same way. Other stacks were much shorter, as superheroes would come and go. By the time we were in junior high school, we'd accumulated over 700 comic books, both from newsstands and many, many trips to used book stores. There weren't any comic shops in the places we lived. For me, though, all of that work came to a crashing halt in 1979 when my desire to escape my mother's wrath for misbehavior gave my brother leverage over me. He demanded my half of the comic collection in exchange for not narcing me out for smoking cigarettes. I gave in. He still has those comic books, 45 years later.
I bought baseball cards until adulthood was well established. I had a giant tray that would hold hundreds of cards at the time, and I loved to put on an Atlanta Braves game and buy a box of cards to open and sort while watching. Rather than numerical order, I liked to sort my baseball cards into teams, alphabetized by players' last names. There was mass over production of cards in the late eighties and early nineties, with several companies competing with Topps, the OG card manufacturer. I bought cards by Upper Deck, Fleer, Donruss and more along with a monthly magazine that gave values to each card. Most of them were worthless, then, and now. I gave up on baseball when it turned out that the success of players I admired, like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens, was due as much to their ingestion of performance enhancing drugs as it was to their talent. I sold a collection of some 20K cards for $100 and never looked back.
When Napster came along and allowed computer nerds with broadband connections to download music as fast as we could type in bands to search for, I went nuts. I assembled the Rolling Stone Magazine collection of the top 500 rock albums of all time. Very few of the songs were tagged correctly, so I used various software titles and the website, Allmusic.com to verify track names and track numbers and the genre and all the miscellaneous information like release dates on all the music I downloaded. I spent many hours sitting at a desktop Mac editing MP3 tags while listening to music. I loved it, and today I am grateful to my past self for having done such an outstanding job.
These days, I am fanatical about keeping two types of data organized: my thousands of Obsidian notes and my photographs. Both of these lend themselves to being sorted in various ways digitally. I use both tags and folders because why not? During the upcoming holiday break, i will spend many hours happily looking at photos and reading notes and clipped articles and deciding where to file them. It sparks joy. It soothes me. Not only that, but it's what I like to do more than just about anything else.
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Some Fun Tech Chores to Catch Up on During the Holidays

This is what I'm planning to do. Hopefully, it gives you a few ideas.
- Catch up reading my favorite newsletters, like Morning Brew,The Installer,10 Blue Links
- Play with the latest Raycast extensions to see if there is anything I can use.
- Check out the latest Obsidian extensions to see what looks useful
- Evaluate what's been added to Setapp to see what I can test and review.
- Clean out my Raindrop.io bookmarks
- Clean up and evaluate my RSS feeds at Inoreader
- Watch a bunch of YouTube videos that I've saved in Play.
- Read through my journal entries for 2024 in Day One
- Go through the photos I took in 2024, probably with Musebox
- Gather up all the "Best of 2024" articles on TV, podcasts, books, movies and TV shows and add them to Goodreads, Overcast, and Sequel.
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Two Apps To Use if You Work in Markdown
I do almost all of my writing in Markdown, a lightweight and
human-friendly markup language used for formatting plain text. Created
in 2004, it uses simple punctuation and characters to denote headers,
links, emphasis, code blocks, lists and other styles. Markdown is often
used for writing README files, documentation, or content for websites.
The language was designed for easy reading and writing. One issue with
Markdown is that it must be rendered before it looks ready for mass
consumption, including printing. Another issue is converting text into
other formats, like .docx and .rtf.
There are plenty of tools for those who use Markdown. For creating documents, I often use Obsidian or MarkEdit, both of which are free. Obsidian is a hugely powerful app that has over 2000 plugins and can be overly complicated for some. It's also an electron app that some people avoid for that reason.
Marked 2
My recommendation to render and print Markdown files is Marked 2 by the great Mac developer, blogger and podcaster, Brett Terpstra. Marked 2 works with many different flavors of Markdown and is really great for developers writing GitHub documentation because it is capable of handling fenced code blocks, line break preservation and automatic hyperlinking. You can even get a spelling and grammar checker through IAP for Marked 2. It works with Obsidian, Scrivener, Ulysses, MarsEdit, Highland 2, iThoughtsX, MindNode, and other third-party apps. Aside from rendering and printing, Marked 2 also has impressive exporting features natively, including:
- PDF (continuous or paginated)
- RTF
- RTFD
- DOC
- DOCX
- ODT
- OPML
Marked 2 is not an editor. It only renders files.
Texts
If you want a WYSIWYG editor for Markdown with considerable exporting features, you can use Texts, a free app. Texts has great table support. What makes Texts special is its ability to import (and convert to Markdown) DOCX, OPML, HTML and LaTeX. It supports the same export formats as Marked and also adds
- HTML
- HTML Presentations
- EPUB2
- EPUB3
- XeLaTex
You can also print from Texts.
I Hate Being Bi-Polar, It's Awesome!

I'm in much need of a mental health day or two away from the world. Living with a bipolar disorder diagnosis for nearly 40 years has given me the insight into my own thought patterns, feelings and behavior to recognize what's going on with myself and to take action. It starts with vague, uneasy, paranoid feelings. "Why is everyone mad at me?" (They actually aren't. It just feels that way) Then I feel a deep sadness and isolation for no apparent reason. Everything, and I mean absolutely everything, becomes difficult. I dread having to speak to anyone. For many years, up to the end of 2008, I medicated these feelings with the help of distilleries and breweries and the occasional pot dealer, but I put that behind me finally and for the past 16 years, I've dealt with the black dog on my own.
I'm from the pre-Prozac generation, who had to endure old-fashioned tricyclic anti-depressants with all their many side effects back in the 80s. Modern psychotropic meds have come a long way. I've taken a whole catalog of them over the years and these days I have what my doc calls a poly-pharmacy that has few side effects, isn't addictive and is readily available from just about any druggist. Despite meds though, I still have weird mood swings and feelings that are a product of haywire brain chemistry rather than the events going on around me. The reality is that I have a low stress life, no financial pressure to speak of, no real enemies or resentments, an easy job and a good home life. That's why it is so maddening to feel so low. There is nothing to fix.
Experience tells me that this too shall pass, as long as it isn't the start of a downward spiral, and this doesn't feel like that. I still have an interest in plenty of meaningful things. I'm still functional enough. My current mood is conveniently happening right before a long scheduled break from work. It's a time when I will have almost no responsibilities. I'll be able to get plenty of rest. The only person I'll have to deal with will be the one I love the most. All of that is good.
I'm sorry that I don't have anything that interesting to share today. I'm struggling, but I will be OK.
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The Cost of Not Going to College

There is a recent trend among certain prominent individuals to discourage young people from attending college. Politicians with Ivy League Educations who have children attending Ivy League schools via legacy admissions shamelessly stand in front of the cameras and tell the rest of us to send our kids to trade school or have them go join the military. And, if we absolutely have to send them to school, whatever we do, we should not let them study the humanities. It's STEM only for today's boys and girls.
First the facts - attending college is good for you in very measurable ways.
College graduates live an average of eight years longer than people who only graduated high school
Life expectancy gap in America widens depending on college education
Lifetime earnings are dramatically higher for college graduates. The gap starts in your 20s and increases exponentially over your lifetime.
Is college worth it? Yes, according to this Fed data
Why do politicians discourage people from going to college?
Why do so many Republicans hate college? - The Washington Post
Why Politicians Don’t Want Students to Think
Is it working? Are fewer people attending
OK, we've established why it's good for people, but why has the cost of education increased at a greater rate than inflation in general?
Inflation affects the price of everything—including a college education
I'm a high school student who wants to ignore all that stuff and skip college. Help me convince my parents.
51 Successful People Who Didn't Go to or Finish College
Full disclosure - I did not attend college, but even I know what that's cost me since 1983.
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Free Security Apps for Mac
Clyde is an app that sounds an alarm when someone shuts your laptop, so that when you walk away from it to order coffee or look for a book and it gets tampered with, everyone will know. The paid version will also send an alert to your watch and phone
- Reikey is free software from Objective-See that alerts you to any installed keyloggers on your computer. It's from the same suits of apps as Lulu, Knock-Knock, Task Explorer and Block-Block.
- ReiKey and Task Explorer from Objective-See
- BlockBlock and KnockKnock from Objective-See
- Objective-See: OverSight - lets you know when your microphone or webcam is in use by any app.
LinkLiar - a free app for
spoofing the MAC address of your Wi-Fi and Ethernet interfaces to add an
extra layer of protection on public networks.
@home - is a free app that will keep your laptop from locking on your home network but enable locking when you are away. It works from the name of the network to which you are connected.
The Art of Not Living in Fear

The power structure in America has a lot invested in the people being continually afraid and craving protection. The people of this country put up with half our tax dollars going to military related spending or to service debt on previous military spending. It's framed as “defense” spending as if we are continually under so much of a threat that we must spend as much on our military as the rest of the world put together. When we do go to war, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, we incur debts our grandchildren will still be paying off for little noticeable safety or increase in quality of life.
We also put up with squadrons of militarized police who enjoy near immunity for taking civilian lives, particularly minority lives. All they have to do is claim to have feared for their life over the toy your child was holding, and they can and do escape justice. We build prisons with money that could be used for schools. Politicians from both parties but these days primarily Republicans tell blatant lies about the crime rates to get elected and then rob social services to hire more cops and put more people in prison.
Americans buy environmentally unfriendly SUVs because they think them to be safer than cars that get better gas mileage. The home alarm industry is thriving as people pour money into unreliable and easily defeated systems to keep out the bad guys. We throw out perfectly edible food because of arbitrary and misunderstood dates stamped on the can. Large sections of the population are now resisting vaccines because they are afraid of some unspecified and unproven boogeyman.
The more afraid the ruling class can convince us to be, the more they can make themselves look goof by promising to protect us. The more money they can steer towards their cronies in the defense industries, the more they can consolidate power through quid pro quo donations and kickbacks. Where does it end?
It permeates into everyday life. Most American workers, especially in non-unionized workplaces live fearing arbitrary layoffs or discipline without due process. Productivity and forward progress is often stymied by workers who fear making a decision for fear of “getting in trouble.” There are entire workplace cultures built around "cover your ass” practices that add nothing to the mission or the bottom line.
Conservatives tell those who are the most privileged in society, white, Christian affluent citizens that their way of life is threatened by, you guessed it, non-white, non-Christian, non-affluent people. They demonize the immigrants who pick our food, build our homes and work in our factories with lies about their criminality and cost to society.
I'm so sick of it. I've felt real fear, the kind you feel when you think someone is going to do great violence to you. It's a horrible, shameful, emasculating feeling that can, in just a few moments, alter your entire life. I never want to feel that again and ever since I had that experience, I've tried not to let fear of any kind be a feeling associated with my self-identity. I'm not afraid of immigrants or terrorists or gangs of crazed criminals or of getting fired because I didn't get the boss's permission to do X. I reject all of that. I choose to live in a world where I believe we can solve the problems we face with something besides cruise missiles, more cops and restricting the rights of whole classes of people.
The ruling class better be careful. The scare tactics are working today, but in all of human history, no society has remained as subjugated as ours is becoming without the pitchforks coming out in the end. We are developing a societal case of PTSD based on the lies we have been fed and the results will not be pretty.
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My Online Security Setup

In the modern age, it takes a real strategy to protect yourself from invasive mega-corporations who want to track you, bad actors on the malware front and in your face non-stop advertising. Whatever tools you choose have to balance with usability because we all have work we have to get done.
Next DNS
The classic uBlock Origin ad blocker was deprecated by Google Chrome in favor of a less powerful Light version. With the ever-increasing need for security ,Mac users have the option of downloading the NextDNS configuration app from the Mac App Store and setting up a free account with the enhanced DNS server. If you aren't into acronyms, DNS stands for dynamic name service and it is what translates IP addresses into the URLs we use to name websites. You can use a special DNS service to block malware, ads, trackers and other unwanted traffic from ever reaching your computer by using one.
NextDNS is free for up to 300,000 queries a month, and you can use the same account on multiple computers, mobile devices and your router. It works on Macs and PCs, iPhones and Android devices - on anything that allows you to enter your network settings. If you have a large household and require a paid account, it is just $1.99 a month.
Technically speaking, you don't even have to use the app. NextDNS can automatically generate a profile for you to use on your Mac and mobile devices and if you have the right kind of router, you can set it up without having to make ANY modifications to your computer.
NextDNS Features
- Ads and Trackers - currently blocking 119,372 addresses
- Block domains known to distribute malware, launch phishing attacks and host command-and-control servers using a blend of the most reputable threat intelligence feeds -- all updated in real-time.
- Block malware and phishing domains using Google Safe Browsing -- a technology that examines billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites. Unlike the version embedded in some browsers, this does not associate your public IP address to threats and does not allow bypassing the block.
- Prevent the unauthorized use of your devices to mine cryptocurrency.
- Block domains that impersonate other domains by abusing the large character set made available with the arrival of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) -- e.g. replacing the Latin letter "e" with the Cyrillic letter "е".
- Block domains registered by malicious actors that target users who incorrectly type a website address into their browser -- e.g. gooogle.com instead of google.com.
- Block Parked Domains
- Block any Top Level Domain
- Block Newly Registered Websites
- Block CSAM
- Optional Parental controls for YouTube, Safe Search, Time-based rules, specific apps, websites and games
Nord VPN
My next level of protection starts with my VPN choice, Nord. I run Nord on all my devices, Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple TV. I don't have a compatible router, but it can be installed on ones that are. Nord has many security features including a malicious URL blocker, web tracker blocker, ad blocker, URL trimmer and a DNS filter to block ads and malicious domains before they reach my device.
Little Snitch Firewall
Little Snitch from Objective Development is truly the most configurable consumer oriented firewall for the Mac platform. The Little Snitch Network Monitor shows you where your Mac connects to on the Internet. You decide what you want to allow or deny. If an app has no need to access the Internet, you can cut off its access. It's easy to use and configure and as a bonus, you can download and install preconfigured block lists from several sources to make your computer safe.
Other firewall options are Lulu from Objective-See and Lockdown Privacy Desktop, which is what I install on my Mom's Mac because it is set it and for get it.
Block-Block for Realtime Protection
BlockBlock monitors common persistence locations and alerts whenever a persistent component is added. It alerts you whenever something is installed and you can decide whether to allow that or block it. It's a free product. You can get more features in the paid version of MalwareBytes or use their free scanner that must be run manually.
uBlock Origin Lite for Browser-Based Protection
There are many factors that go into making a selection of what browser to use. I use Vivaldi's built-in ad and tracker blocking along with uBlock Origin Lite multi-spectrum content blocker plugin to block ads, trackers, malicious URLs and more. Among the most security conscious Mac users who don't need to use a Chromium browser, it is generally accepted that Firefox with uBlock Origin provides the best experience.
These products all work together to provide as safe an environment as I feel I can craft on my Mac. If you have ideas for improvement, please contact me.
Testing
You can use these three sites to check the effectiveness of your security setup.
AdBlock Tester: test your AdBlock extensions
eXtreme Test - Can You Block It ?
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Drafts Pro 50% Off for New Users
For
new users, Drafts Pro is 50% off the first year.
Drafts was the first app I installed when I became interested in iOS and Mac automation. The power users of the world explained it to me as the universal quick capture app for my phone. I was advised to always enter text into Drafts no matter where I eventually wanted it to end up. I dutifully put it into my dock, and it's been there ever since. In this post, I'm going to go over eight different ways I use Drafts. It's important to note that it pays off to give it a prominent place in your iOS sharing setting for ease of use. On macOS it should show up in the share settings by default.
1. Copy to Obsidian Inbox
I am all in on Obsidian the massively popular note's app with a robust 1600+ plugin architecture. It does a lot of things amazing well but mobile quick capture is not one of them. To solve that, I use this Drafts action which saves the text to the default save location in my vault and uses the first line of the text as the note title/file name. I use a couple of other Drafts to Obsidian actions including Add to Obsidian Daily Note and Add to Daily Note Plus which add text to my daily note in different ways using a time stamp and a geolocation.
2. The Things 3, Fantastical, Day One Combo
The Quick Journaling Action Group lets me keep one running note that I can process at day's end to send the individual lines as entries into Fantastical, Things 3 and Day One.
- Lines starting with "-" are collected and sent to Day One as a journal entry
- Lines starting with "⁎" are sent to Things inbox
- Lines starting with "@" are sent to Fantastical
3. Things Parser
Using Task Paper syntax I can create a note in Drafts complete with due dates, areas, projects and tags that get correctly imported into the Things 3 task manager using the Things Parser. I use this with a Drafts template to create daily and weekly checklists for reoccurring tasks. I also use the action group, Things for Things which includes actions for:
- Inbox
- Today
- This Evening
- Tomorrow
- Pick date
- Work
- House
- Personal
- Pick a Project
- Make a Project
- Selection to things
- Bunch of todos
- Process notes from
- Prompt for new task
4. Mail to Evernote
Yep, I still use Evernote for some tasks. Old habits die hard. Evernote eliminated AppleScript a while back and their API has become more and more problematic , but one feature they still support and that works equally well on iOS and macOS is the mail to Evernote feature and this Drafts action accomplishes that without you ever having to use your mail client.
5. Micro.blogging
This blog is hosted by Micro.blog and I
can create entries in Drafts and have them posted online by running an
action. I use the action Post to Micro.blog with
Title by the great blogger Matt
Birchler.
6. OMG.LOL Status
I am a big fan of the almost indescribable web community at OMG.LOL. One of the fun features there is a status board you can share with other members, post on your website and cross-post to Mastodon (where all the cool kids hang out). The OMG.LOL Status action does it all.
7. Run Shortcut to Save to Thoughts Inspiration Manager
One of my favorite things to do online is to collect quotes from various
sources, I save my quotes in an app called Thoughts Inspiration Manager. I
don't have a Drafts action to write directly to Thoughts but it doesn't
matter because I have a Shortcut that does. I just need to run the
Drafts shortcut action explained in
the user guide.
8. Personal Assistant
Drafts can serve as an interface with OpenAI by using the Personal Assistant action. (using your own API key) It's a helpful action to run when you know you are going to use the AI generated text in another app. This action allows the user to get an AI-assisted response to a prompt:
- The user is prompted to enter input, which can be pasted from the clipboard or manually entered.
- The input is then sent to the OpenAI API, and the response is inserted into the current draft 3 lines after the cursor.
- If there is no selected text in the draft, the user is asked if they would like to use text from the clipboard. If the prompt is canceled or the input is empty, the action cancels.
- If there is no response from the API, the output is set to "No reply received."
Division of Labor

When Wonder Woman and I were a new couple, we lived in a house with a pool in the yard. In case you didn't know, pools are a giant PIA. One day, the pump just quit working. It wasn't all that old, but it seems that few things last very long anymore. In situations like that, my inclination is to make phone calls, to a plumber, a pool guy or a general handyman, until I can find someone to come resolve my problem. My wife's mind does not work like mine. She inspected the pump, got the specs, ordered a replacement overnight from Amazon, and the next day, she installed it be herself. She is a CPA by trade, and I don't think they teach that in accounting school.
I was a lot handier early in life when I could not afford to hire people to fix things. I let those skills atrophy when I finally made enough money to pay someone else to relieve me of the burden of handyman duty. Computers are the only thing I enjoy working on. Wonder Woman uses some of her vices as tools to get things done. She is not known for her patience. One of the reasons she is so quick to repair plumbing and electrical issues is that when she takes care of those things, it eliminates having to wait on someone else's schedule. Although she is generally friendly and personable, she is a true introvert. Having a stranger in the house who might talk to her or ask her questions is one of her least favorite things on the planet. In the entire time we have been married, she has never answered the door when I was home. That is my job and I don't really mind.
There's just the two of us at home, and the division of labor falls more heavily on her than it does on me. I am responsible for cooking dinner. Cooking is one of my talents and enjoyable when I have the time. . Since I went back to work, however, we have been eating things that can be prepared quickly. We used a meal service, one of those that mails you food, for a while, but it eventually became repetitive. I've promised to go back to cooking from scratch when I retire for good. I am also responsible for the yard, which at one time meant that I mowed it once a week, but now means that I am the one to write the check to Juan, our yard guy. He needs to get Venmo!
I help fold clothes. Sometimes. I unload the dishwasher. Occasionally. We have a housekeeping service in a couple of times a month and I sort of help straighten up before they come. Mostly, I am spoiled. Wonder Woman moves fast and in the span of time it takes me to figure out how to do most things, she has already done them. It isn't weaponized incompetence on my part. She is just faster at doing everything than anyone else around her. It doesn't matter what the task is or who the other parties are. On group bike rides full of alpha males from all walks of life, when someone has a flat tire, she's the one who usually changes everyone's tube for them. She is just good like that.
She doesn't even like me to fix her IT problems unless it is something truly devilish. I've only been doing computer support for 30 years. She'd rather get mad and scare her laptop into acting right than she would hand it to me so I can figure out what's going on. She's classic Type A over achiever material. I can't tell you how many times I've been chastised for the sin of walking all the way across a parking lot without having the keys out and ready to use when I get to the car. She starts rolling her eyes the second she sees me stop at the car to dig around in my pockets. I don't know what she planned to do with those three extra seconds, but it was undoubtably critical.
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The Origin of Your Favorite Soda, Pop, Drink, Coke, Dope or Whatever You Call It

Where I'm from in NC, we generally call soft drinks - drinks, occasionally sodas, but never pop or any of the other names people use around the country. One of the most unusual references of beverage is the one my brother uses. He grew up in LA, Lower Alabama that is, and down there people ask you in total seriousness, "What kind of coke do you want"
It is perfectly OK to reply to that question by saying "I'll have a Pepsi." Weird, huh?
Another thing I like about soda culture is the prevalence of regional drinks. In North Carolina, we have two, Cheerwine and Sundrop. When I hiked up north, i was delighted to find out the folks in Maine have a popular drink called Moxie Soda
- Coca-Cola History
- The History of Pepsi
- The Unknown History of Mountain Dew
- History of Dr. Pepper
- The History of 7UP and Charles Leiper Grigg
- A Brief History of Sprite - It's German! Who knew?
- The haunting history of Fanta - Too weird not to include
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Access: Secure Passwords Companion
One big feature missing from Apple's new Passwords App is secure
notes to store data besides passwords. While you can make notes within
the app, it isn't designed to store that kind of info. You could opt for
the Apple Notes app since it's secured by the same security and allows
you to password protect individual items with a password. It even
supports templates, but you would have to build them yourself. If you
want a secure, ready-made solution you can use on iOS and macOS, Access may be right for you.
Access has templates for the following kinds of data:
- Payment card
- Bank account
- ID
- Document
- Driver's License
- Insurance
- Passport
- Medical Record
- Rewards program
- Membership
- Software license
- Gift card
- API keys
- Secure personal entries (address book format)
- Notes (useful for all those 2FA code backups)
Every entry has room for user-defined custom fields and attachments, so not only can you have easy to copy info from your important documents, you can also have a photographic copy of them as well.
The layout and appearance of Access is identical to that of the Passwords app. Since privacy is paramount considering the types of data stored in Access, the developer goes into great detail to explain it "Your information is backed up and kept up-to-date across your devices via iCloud. Access is using Apple’s industry-leading iCloud Encryption to protect your information. No data is ever sent to any server other than iCloud. The app doesn't create, access, or store keys for any encrypted data. With Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, all Secure Data stored in Access is end-to-end encrypted and is inaccessible to the Developer, Apple, or any third party at all times. For an added layer of security, Access supports authentication with Touch ID. All data stored in Access on your device is automatically encrypted and decrypted by the system."
Access has a free version with limited functionality, but to get access to every feature, you'll need to purchase lifetime access for $29.99 or subscribe for $9.99 yr/$3.99 mo.
The Real Me and The Real You

One of the primary criticisms of social media is that people present an idealized representation of their lives. We get to see the beautiful photos of the beach they sat on while on vacation but we don't see the mildew in the resort bathroom or the credit card bill they incurred for the privilege. People are more than willing to share the pictures of the prefect steaks on their grills without also showing the seven Lean Cuisines they ate in the past three days. We don't see pictures of how our friends look after just waking up or read a lot about the opportunities they didn't get at work and are therefore not pleased to announce on LinkedIn.
I am as guilty as anyone in some ways. I would rather not be a Debbie Downer or mark myself as a whiner by complaining online. Who really wants to hear that? As a photographer, I'm going to take 1000 pictures to show you 10. That's the way it works. Most of us are not pretending to be someone we are not. We are just putting our best foot forward, sharing things we are proud of or that we are celebrating. I know my friends well enough to know they don't have perfect lives, regardless of what it looks like on Facebook, Bluesky or Mastodon. Hopefully, I don't have too may friends still using Twitter.
As a blogger whose style is autobiographical, I strive to be honest. I don't mind revealing a few warts. The people who know me, know I have them, and what do I really have to lose if the people who don't know me find out my various imperfections? I would hope they would get it on some level. By not pretending to be perfect, I think it makes the rest of what I write more relatable.
I'd like to be able to present myself as having been born with great political sensibilities, but that isn't the case. Teenage me had no understanding of politics. The vote I cast in my first presidential election isn't something I talk about much. There was no passion and not much thought behind it. I voted because the country gave me the privilege because I'd managed to live for 18 years. I even skipped a couple of elections. I felt vaguely guilty about it, but it just seemed like a hassle. In 1988, I could not have told you much of anything about George H. W. Bush or Michael Dukakis.
When it comes to tech, the field where I made my career, there are many, many areas where I have little aptitude and less interest. I was happy as a K-12 IT specialist for two decades. In tech, like other fields, if you want to advance, you have to leave the keyboard and mouse skills behind and take up the soft skills of managing people to advance. Call me a slacker, but I was not interested. I'm finishing out my working years in higher ed, doing end user support with no interest in becoming a network engineer or a system administrator. I'm not having a contest with anyone in real life or on the Internet to be the smartest computer guy in the room. I just want my paycheck and room to do the job I have.
In my personal life, what you see is mostly what you get. I do, in fact, adore my wife. She treats me great and while I won't tell you her every complaint, I can assure you that they are all warranted and none of them are selfish. I have some family relationships that are more difficult than others, but again, the truth is that I love being a Dad and a grandfather more than just about anything apart from being Wonder Woman's husband.
I am just another regular guy with one list of things I am proud of and another list I don't want to talk about. I'm pretty happy in general, although I'm worried about the world, both right now and in the future. I do my best to be genuine, even if my story telling instinct can be a bone of contention between me and my personal fact-checker (Wonder Woman).
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What's On Your Watch List?

One thing I plan to do during my holiday break from work is to spend some time catching up on shows that I've been wanting to watch but haven't had the time to see. Here is what Wonder Woman and I plan to watch as much of as we can.
Silo - AppleTV+
We both read the book this series is based on and we have seen season one. Not every episode of season two has been released yet, but we plan to catch up. "In a ruined and toxic future, thousands live in a giant silo deep underground. After its sheriff breaks a cardinal rule and residents die mysteriously, engineer Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo."
Shetland - BritBox via Amazon Prime Video
We've watched all eight previous seasons and are primed for another one. Shetland is the story of the detectives on the Shetland Islands, a beautiful location of the north coast of Scotland. Although the wonderful Douglas Henshall is no longer playing Jimmy Perez, the lead detective, the cast is still solid and the show well-made. This season's description - When a woman goes missing with her nine-year-old son, Calder and Tosh set out on a case that blurs the line between the personal and professional."
Black Doves - Netflix
We've just heard about this Netflix show, but we are partial to British actors and this one has the lovely Keira Knightley along with Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire. It's a six episode run that tells an interesting tale - "When a spy posing as a politician's wife learns her lover has been murdered, an old assassin friend joins her on a quest for truth — and vengeance."
Man on the Inside - Netflix
Wen enjoyed Ted Danson in the Good Place and look forward to seeing him in this crime comedy that has gotten good reviews. It's an eight-episode run described as "A retired professor gets a new lease on life when a private investigator hires him to go undercover inside a San Francisco retirement home."
Time - Brit Box On Amazon Prime Video
We watched season one of this British prison drama with Sean Bean and Stephan Graham. Season two features Jodie Whiitaker and Siobhan Finneran and centers on the story of incarcerated women. Season two is described as "Orla, a single mother serving her first sentence, Abi, who is incarcerated for life, and Kelsey, a pregnant heroin addict and repeat offender, begin their sentences at a women's prison."
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Cronica - A Free, Privacy Focused Media Tracker for Mac and iOS
There are many paid options to discover and track movies and TV
shows, most of them being subscription-based. Cronica, donation-ware
from Egger, Inc., full-featured right out of the box, with no limit on
usage. The app can be employed for various purposes:
- Tracking episodes of TV shows or movies you've already seen
- Discovering new movies and shows through trailers and descriptions from The Movie Database (with an option to watch the trailers via YouTube)
- Notifications when movies are released or new episodes of shoes air
- iCloud syncing between your Mac and iOS devices - no account required with the app's developers
- Get suggestions based on your watch history
- Share links with others from within the app, using The Movie Database
- Suitable for international audiences. Allows users to choose a region.
Cronica is available for download from the Mac App Store.
This Week's Bookmarks - Appealing Claim Denials, Post-Truth World, Using Any Emoji, Comedy Wildlife Photography, Facts and Time's MOY, Chronic Back Pain and the CEO's Death, Racing's Deadliest Day
The Polar Express

This evening, Wonder Woman and I treated three of our daughters, two sons-in-law and eight of our grandchildren to a ride on the Polar Express train ride sponsored by our state’s transportation museum, located between Winston-Salem and Charlotte. Even though we are spread across the state, we gathered for the experience for which we’d purchased tickets months in advance.
Prior to boarding the train, we stood with other families in the chill air. Most people, including most of us were wearing pajamas. Local actors performed a few skits. We sang Christmas carols and judged three kiddos in a contest to see who could say “HoHoHo” the best.
Once on the train, we had our golden tickets punched. We were greeted by young actors playing characters from the book. Then we were served hot chocolate and cookies while we listened to an actor read the book to us. We stopped briefly at the North Pole where we disembarked to visit with the elves.
When we reboarded, each seat had a gift in it. Then Santa made his way down the length of the train and gave every passenger a silver bell. Before we knew it, we were back at the station.
The kids, ranging in age from a couple of kindergarteners up through a high school freshman, were all well behaved I was happy to make this memory with them. I’m up past my bedtime, but it was worth it.
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2024 Brought Big Changes to My Workflow

This year, my time online skyrocketed. I started blogging and I became active on social media, primarily Mastodon and Bluesky. At my day job, I moved from a creaky old Dell to a maxed out iMac. As a result, I had to reevaluate some of the tools I'd used for many years.
I dumped Evernote, which I'd used since 2009 in favor of Obsidian.
My 10 Favorite Things About #Obsidian
I switched from Pathfinder, an app I used for 18 years, to Qspace for file management.
After 17 years with Launchbar, I started using Raycast Pro and never looked back.
My 10 Favorite #Raycast Use Cases (and all the apps it replaced)
I deleted my Twitter account and started using Ivory for Mastodon on my iPhone and Mac.
After being all in on Microsoft Edge for my browsing needs, I switched to Vivaldi for the customization options.
Sloth - Activity Monitor on Steroids
Sloth is a free and open-sourced app that's been around for twenty
years. It provides an app by app breakdown of all open files and sockets
in use by all running processes on your system. This makes it easy to
inspect which apps are using which files and sockets. In activity
monitor, you get information on processes, but not on what app they
belong to or where they are located on disk. Every so often, when you
are troubleshooting an obscure problem, you need that information. I
recently had to track down what app was causing my Mac to slow to a
crawl every time I encountered an open/save dialog box. Sloth was
helpful during that process.
You may end up surprised at some processes running on your box. Despite everything I have tried, the inescapable Adobe virus insists on running some process whenever my computer is on, despite having all their apps set to not run at login.
Features
- View all open files, directories, IP sockets, devices, Unix domain sockets and pipes
- Filter by name, access mode, volume, type, location, or using regular expressions
- Sort by name, process ID, user ID, process type, bundle identifier, etc.
- View IP socket status, protocol and version
- View sockets and pipes established between processes
- Inspection window with detailed macOS and Unix file/socket/process info
- Powerful contextual menu for file operations
- In-app authentication to run with root privileges
Sloth is available on GitHub and can be downloaded via Homebrew.
$ brew install --cask sloth
There Are No Vigilante Armies Being Formed - Yet

Ugh. I am exhausted by the virtue-signaling pretend progressives preaching on the Internet about how "murder is murder" and acting all judgy at those of us who aren't mourning the death of a vulture capitalist who let sick people die to enhance shareholder value for United Healthcare. Just shut up. There are no vigilante armies being formed to come to your job and shoot your boss. Maybe there will be a copycat or too, but we are not in the midst of a revolution. Yet.
In the 60s, the folk singer, Phil Ochs recorded a scathing song called Love Me, I'm a Liberal. Its lyrics are dated now with references to people long forgotten, but its spirit lives on. It jabs at people who want change, as long as it isn't messy. I wonder what exactly the pearl clutching crowd thinks it's going to take to get the kind of change we need to our healthcare system. Do they think that all those billionaires Trump is appointing to government positions are going to suddenly give a shit about sick middle-class and poor people? I suspect most of them have never experienced anything more than a slight inconvenience when it comes to the for-profit healthcare system.
Here's my story. I am a big guy, I've weighed over 200 pounds (ca. 91 kg) almost all of my adult life, sometimes a lot more. In my 40s, I decided to become an endurance athlete. I took up ultra-distance cycling and then long distance hiking. Even in more relaxed times I chose walking as my primary form of exercise. I developed osteoarthritis in both knees. Eventually, all the cartilage that cushions the collision between my femurs and the bones of my lower legs was gone. I had extremely painful bone on bone contact that ached constantly, making it hard to sleep or to be mobile. Every attempt at getting treatment for years was met with delays, denials and deception. The shots that provided the most relief cost a $1000 a pop. I was supposed to get them every six-months but the insurance company always dragged their feet getting things approved, and I usually had to wait eight or nine months. It was up to me to make numerous phone calls to every part of the system - the doctor, the pharmacy, and the insurance company.
The constant scramble to get treatment disrupted my job. It eventually left me severely depressed. I went from a fit man who hiked the entire 2,189-mile Appalachian Trail in 2013, to someone who could not walk a mile by 2020. That year I had both of my knees surgically replaced. at age 55 and retired early. I will probably never regain the fitness I previously enjoyed - all because an insurance company made life purposefully difficult in the hope that I would just give up and stop seeking treatment. All of that sucks for me, but it pales in comparison to the countless people who have lost their life savings and their lives after being denied needed medical care.
I do not care how messy it gets to fix our broken system. I don't have sympathy for the dead CEO because all my sympathy is used up on the suffering people of this country whose problems he and his fellow travelers cause. I am reaching the "any means necessary" phase of my life. When a people are held down by a ruthless ruling class, they eventually snap. Did you see what just happened in Syria? After paying a horrible, horrible price, they got rid of an autocratic despot. If you think the same thing couldn't happen in this country where there are more guns than people - well LOL.,
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Ente Auth - The Free Authy Replacement for Your Mac and iPhone
If you miss the Authy 2FA desktop app, and you would rather not
use Apple Passwords, since if you were to lose access to your Apple
account, you would lose access to all your codes, Ente Auth is a free and open-source
option. You have the option to create an account if you want to sync
your codes between devices, or you can skip that if you just want to use
it on a single device.
The desktop version of Ente Auth has some nice features I haven't seen elsewhere. Not only does it show you the current 2FA code for your app, it also shows you the next code in the sequence. This eliminates the aggravating wait for the codes to change when there are only a few seconds left in the lifetime of the current code. You can also configure the desktop app to open directly to the search field, so you can immediately begin searching for the code you need.
It can be a hassle to set up a new authenticator, since you have to manually add sites. Most do not allow you to use more than one app to do 2FA. Still, it is a one-time chore and worth it for the convenience of having a secure desktop app with end-to-end encryption.
Thanks to Justin Pot for his article on Lifehacker about Ente Auth.
What to Get Geeks

I don't have any beef with personal bloggers who use affiliate links. Everyone has a right to have a hustle. Besides, I've found some helpful items on the web pages of people i follow. I don't particularly like commercial newsletters that continually post lists because I begin to doubt the work that went into them. I don't do affiliate links because I 1) can't be arsed 2) I am terrified of blogging ever seeming like a job. What I'm listing here are just some ideas you can use to get gifts for the geeks on your shopping list.
- Ergonomic Mouse Pad - $9.99 - This has a wrist rest and can be used with a mouse of an Apple magic Track Pad.
- Logitech MX Master 3S $99.99 - Even though I am a big old Apple fanboy, this is a better mouse than the ergonomically unfriendly Magic Mouse
- Logitech MX Keys S for Mac $89.99 - The Apple Magic keyboard with fingerprint ID is expensive and arguably not as good as this option.
- Anker USB C Charger $39.99 - This charger is what I travel with and it takes care of my MacBook, my iPhone and my Apple Watch. It's the best charger I have ever used.
- SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable SSD $97.95 - This rugged, small, portable drive is good for the computer bag or for use as a Time Machine backup on your Mac. It's fast and dependable.
- Smartish iPhone Wallet Case - $24.99 - This family of cases is why I have not carried a wallet in years. It holds enough cards to get me by, plus it provides outstanding protection to my phone, which I drop on the regular.
- Screen Cleaner Wipes $14.99 - This is another good item for the computer bag. I don't know how may computer gets a dirty as it does, but it needs regular cleaning. These wipes re my go to for that.
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Why I Am a History Fan

As long as I can remember, i've enjoyed visiting the past in my imagination, something i can do just as easily with a Wikipedia article as I can while watching Lonesome Dove for the tenth time. Growing up, I loved my grandparent's' stories of living on rural farms before and during the Great Depression. Even my parents (who are only 17 years older than me) have fascinating tales of seeing Elvis and the Beatles on TV. Since I live on the East coast, my part of the US has recorded history that stretches back to pre-colonial times, and Native American history that goes back much further. General Sherman's troops marched down the road that lies at the end of my street on their way to burn a Confederate Arsenal whose ruins can still be seen. The US Constitution was ratified by my home state about three miles from where I live.
During the American bicentennial in 1976, I was in the fifth grade, and along with kids all over the country, spent a full year learning colonial history to a degree that has probably never been duplicated. Numerous battles between American revolutionary forces and British troops took place with driving distance at Guilford Courthouse, King's Mountain and Moore's Creek Bridge. I've been to them all.
Unlike many southerners, I am totally fine with the way the Civil War ended up. I'm no believer in the lost cause and I don't romanticize the reasons for the war in any way. It was fought to end slavery in the south, and it ended just as it should have. As a former infantry soldier, I can hardly imagine the discipline and courage of those who fought in that era. I've visited Gettysburg, and stood on the ridge where Union forces held their ground as thousands of Confederate infantry marched in formation across from where their lines formed in front of a religious seminary a mile away. It took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes.
I don't know if those who forget history are really condemned to repeat it. Having always been interested in the past, I am amazed when I encounter intelligent people who can't tell you the decade in which the majority of World War Two was fought. Some can't tell you who was president of the US when they were born. I can't even wrap my mind around being able to name who a pop star is married to while not knowing basic historical facts. I interpret almost everything that is currently happening in the world through a historical lens. I can't imagine functioning without being able to do that. That’s just me.
Obviously, I place a lot of value in curiosity and imagination. I'd much rather watch a historical drama than a superhero movie. It's not that I think the MCU is a bad thing for bad people, it just doesn't spark anything in me. I can't put myself in the character's shoes the way I can when a film has a historical reference, whatever it is.
History is written by the victors, it is said. What we know from books, including textbooks, is what the people who wrote those books want us to know. That is why my life changed forever when I read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen at the age of 36. Suddenly, I realized that entire, important and meaningful pieces of American history had been purposefully obscured to keep from realizing their own power as union members, freed slaves, suffragettes and more. The first time I read a book about the formation of Israel from the perspective apart from the Jewish one, I was in disbelief. How come no one ever told me any of this stuff? I had a similar feeling when I learned that 85% of the Nazis who died in battle were killed by the Soviet Army. America did not win the war and save the world from fascism.. It played a part, sure, but a secondary part. More world view and my outlook on history have never been the same, and I am dedicated to learning more than what the power structure wants us to know.
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Why Does Printer Ink Cost More than Cocaine?

Top reasons given by those that sell ink:
- Research and development costs are huge
- They sell printers at a loss. HP claims that a printer it sells for 120 to manufacture, so it needs to recoup costs and make a profit from the ink.
- Consumers are accused of wasting ink by doing unnecessary maintenance (like cleaning print heads)
Actual Reason
Because they can - using various unethical tactics:
- Causing printer maintenance cycles to use half of every cartridge
- Disabling your ability to use the scanning features of your all-in-one device if you let your ink get low
- Premature low ink warnings
- Blocking access to third-party cartridges
- Preventing the refilling of cartridges
Why Is Printer Ink So Expensive? - Consumer Reports
Why Printer Ink Can Be More Expensive Than the Printer Itself - Business Insider
How printers keep us hooked on expensive ink
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SingleFile - For Safari and Other Mac Browsers
Attempting to save a web page to your local computer often results
in multiple files and folders downloaded. A recently updated plugin for
Safari, Chromium browsers and Firefox provides an elegant way to get
everything you need in a single HTML file, downloaded with the click of
a button in your browser's toolbar. You can choose to download only the
selected text or a single frame from within the page. Any page that you
download can be annotated with tools included within the plugin. The
annotation tools also allow you to remove content you don't need or
want.
Not only can you download a single page and its elements, you can select multiple tabs at once and download them all with a single click. Another option saves a local HTML files of any page that you bookmark. You can control the destination of the saved files, saving them to a cloud drive like Google Drive or iCloud.
You can get SingleFile from wherever you obtain extensions for your particular browser type. The overall project is on GitHub where you can get support.
Delight - Get You Some

It sounds a little frumpy to declare one's self to be delighted. It's the type of word your grandmother would use, or maybe someone else not quite as cool as they ought to be. Personally, I think that is hogwash. I think delight is an outstanding word. You know what is better than the word? The feeling of being delighted, that's what. Let's define it.
Delight - A feeling of great pleasure and satisfaction: the little girls squealed with delight
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to have something to squeal at. Bring it on!
Today, what delighted me was the release of an update to my computer that featured an app that can take pictures of my grandkids and turn them into cute-ass princesses and cowboys. I've been waiting to use this app ever since it was announced. I updated my Mac immediately and started making pictures and sending them to my kids, my wife, and my grandkids. I was delighted. I had great feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. A lot of grumpy, stick up their ass types do not like this new feature because it uses AI, but there have been similar apps around for ages. It's a neat parlor trick. It makes kids and old men happy and if you don't like it, I feel sorry for you.
I am also delighted to get off work every single day. I value my time in the evenings to be with Wonder Woman, to eat whatever I want for supper and to engage in my hobby - writing this blog. At work, I have to do stuff I don't always like doing, such as installing Windows or helping ungrateful people who think it is my fault they forgot their damn password again. I'm at the point where after many, many years of suiting up and showing up, doing eight hours for the man no longer sparks joy. Ever.
Climbing into bed at the end of the day is another wonderful event. I have a good bed with an expensive mattress. My pillows won a tournament for the privilege of serving me. I have a great iPad I bought just to read every night for 15–30 minutes before I go to sleep. Through the miracle of modern technology, I have a silent machine that helps me breath all night long without interruption, something I am unable to do by myself. It allows me to sleep so soundly that I do not have to get up and pee every 90 minutes like I used to. That is a delight, I don't care what anyone says. I am able to climb out of bed in the morning to make my way to the coffee pot feeling rested and ready to start the day.
I am on the lookout for opportunities to be delighted throughout the day. My phone is a delight machine if I have ever seen one. It is capable of producing music that not only makes me happy today, it's been making me happy since childhood. Every time I hear Paul McCartney sing “Hear Comes the Sun” or Bruce Springsteen and the boys play “Cadillac Ranch”, I am delighted. When I take a quick glance at a text message from my profane daughter complaining about something spectacularly fucked-up, I am delighted that she is so good at expressing herself and that she chooses to share it with me. I will not lie, I have notifications turned on and that sweet stream of dopamine that I get when one of my social media posts resonates with people — my friend, it brings me great pleasure and satisfaction.
Wherever you are right now, whatever you are doing, start thinking about finding something delightful before you go to bed. Call your Mom, buy a Snickers bar, read an article from The Onion, howl at the moon. Do something to find some pleasure in this world that seems designed to drag us down and keep us at the bottom. Don't let the bastards win.
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Race and Music

I'm not a music historian, nor have I taken any classes on theory or appreciation. I'm just a reasonably well-read layman who knows that for over a century, white people have had some wacky ideas about race and music. I's been going on since the Jazz age. If you play hip-hop around most white boomers, they freak out on a pretty regular basis. If it's not the language, it's some other criticism, usually centered around rap, and it's fellow travelers not being “regular” or “American” music. These are the same boomers who all listened to Motown when they were in school and came of age watching Elvis Presley get away with movements only a white boy could get away with.
Today there are regular controversies over institutionalized racism in country music, with the CMA ignoring the immense popularity of Beyonce's country album, Cowboy Carter. Then there was the ridiculous and unnecessary inclusion of Billy Ray Cyrus on Old Town Road by Lil Nas X, who being both black and gay was as big an affront to Nashville as there could be for someone who made a damn fine song.
Fortunately for me, I was born 52 day into 1965. Thus, I am firmly in Generation X and I feel no irony in my appreciation of Public Enemy and NWA from the heady days of the late nineties. In fact, I am just the right age to have enjoyed Rapper's Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang when it was being played on the radio.
If you are a hip hop loving boomer, don't be offended. I am happy there are outliers like you.
Debates Around Rap Music’s Validity Rooted in Racism – The Oberlin Review
The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (Official Video) - YouTube
Black artistry is woven into the fabric of country music. It belongs to everyone | Music | The Guardian
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Mac Translation Apps - Offline, Google and DeepL
Most modern browsers have multi-language translate built in.
Vivaldi even has a separate panel for it. Sometimes, though, we
encounter text in other languages in books and documents or when we
aren't connected to the Internet. Then it's not possible to use a
browser. Also, even though Google Translate is the de facto standard,
there are other translation engines that some feel are better. Here are
a few options.
Translator - Offline Translate
If you want a tool for Mac that works when you don't have a connection, this is what you need. It's only 3.99 in the Mac App Store. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription and installs as a menu bar app. One drawback is a limited number of supported languages when compared to online versions. It supports:
- Arabic
- Chinese (Mandarin - China Mainland)
- Chinese (Mandarin - Taiwan)
- Dutch
- English (US)
- English (UK)
- French (France)
- German (Germany)
- Indonesian
- Italian (Italy)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Russian
- Spanish (Spain)
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese
Google Translate Web View
This free app is a web view wrapper for Google Translate that operates from your menu bar and can be summoned with a hotkey. It is available on Github. It has a limit of 5,000 characters at a time. It does have built in OCR for images, so you can upload those to have them interpreted. Google Translate offers automatic language detection if you are unsure what you are dealing with. This is an unsigned app, so you will have to give permission to bypass Gatekeeper. Google supports translation into 108 languages.
DeepL
Some feel the private company, DeepL, offers a product with superior translation abilities when compared to Google. It's paid services offer the ability to upload and translate large documents, including PDFs. The free service provides you with three documents a month of up to 5MB and, like the other apps in this review, provides real-time translation from the menu bar. DeepL supports the following languages:
- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Chinese (simplified and traditional)
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English (American and British)
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazilian and European)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
Mangione’s act, regardless of anything else, has had the effect of speaking to systemic cruelty of the American healthcare system that all Americans suffer under and which has caused untold amounts of death and pain. And so people—including me—want to know who Mangione is and what made him allegedly do this. – 404 Media
Bits and Pieces

I'm feeling a little scattered today. Yesterday was traumatic and today had some rebound from that. Luckily, I had a project to work on this afternoon that kept me from stewing in my own juices. It was nothing complicated, just upgrading some old laptops to provide for a student led research project in our athletics department. I had to swap out some parts and install Windows for the millionth time in my life (x4). I'm glad someone can make use of these devices. It makes me sad when we recycle usable equipment. I'm always contemplating building my own home lab, but it would be a time suck that wouldn't go over well with Wonder Woman.
Here are a few updates
Tech
Like plenty of other people, I am waiting for the updates from Apple to iOS and macOS with promised new AI features. The image playground looks like something I will play with for about 30 minutes and then never use again, but I want my 30 minutes. I've made use of the writing tools Apple included in the last update. I'm still waiting for them to be added to my writing app of choice, Obsidian so that I don't have to copy and paste text in other places to use the service, though.
Travel
Our December plans include a Christmas trip to two spots on the North Carolina coast where our parts of our family live. We'll also make our way down Interstate 40 to the Piedmont area of NC, where one of our daughters lives. The big trip will be a three-day getaway to Savannah, GA. Wonder Woman was initially going to run a marathon down there but decided to do the one in Miami scheduled for February instead. On this trip, we are just going to do typical tourist stuff, including a tour of the cemetery that was on the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, one of my all-time favorites.
Work
My boss promised to speak to the supervisor of the crazy woman who caused me so much grief yesterday. He tried to talk me into being one of those people who lets everything roll off their back. His background is in medical IT, and he had many stories about abusive doctors. I just told him that we aren't in the high stakes world of saving lives. We are a staid liberal arts school in the South where people are supposed to be nice. I spent my late teens and twenties in the Infantry and working in a prison. I got a lifetime of abuse between those two places, and I don't have room in my psyche for anymore.
Family
My dad let us all know that he's hired someone to help him and my stepmother. His health is declining with a recent stroke, auto accident and surgery, while he is also serving as the sole caregiver for his wife who has advanced Alzheimer's. Having someone in the house to do some of the chores and give him a break from the constant need to be on alert is going to make things better for both of them. I live closer to him than any of my siblings, but I still don't get over as much as I'd like.
Indie Web
Even though I missed a day of posting to one of my blogs a couple of weeks ago, I haven't been discouraged by having to start a new streak. I look forward to writing every day, to finding an app to review and deciding what links to share. I wrote a piece for the December Indie Web Carnival. Furthermore, I have been trying to be active on both Mastodon and Bluesky with some success. Mastodon still feels like home, but the larger Bluesky community has been good for getting more news on Apple tech and Obsidian resources.
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How to Do the Hard Stuff

My favorite time to do most almost anything is "not right now." I am a world class procrastinator by nature. In case you are wondering, yes, that can be a serious impediment to personal and professional goals, so I've learned a few tricks over the years. None of them are really surprising, but they can and do make life easier when i use them.
- Say yes to less stuff. I am a people pleaser by nature and take pride in being helpful, but that can get you put in the middle of the 20% of people in any group who do 80% of the work. That's cool if you enjoy the work, not so much if it is a burden.
- Knock out the hard stuff first. More often than not, the pain for procrastinators is in the dread of having to do things they don't want to do rather than in actually doing them.
- Have hard hobbies - whether it's riding a bike for 100 miles at a stretch, dead lifting and squatting 400 lbs. or hiking the Appalachian Trail, I've done enough hard things that I can't lie to myself when faced with lesser tasks.
- If you fear doing something, if that is the hard bit, having someone to talk it through with is a life saver. I'd rather relax my ego some and confess trepidation than pretend to be stoic when I'm scared.
How to Convince Yourself to Do Hard Things
10 Ways To Train Your Brain To Do Hard Things
How to Do Hard Things — JOHN MASHNI
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iCollections - A Desktop Centric Workflow Manager Similar to the Classic Dragthing
The late, great Mac app, Dragthing reached end
of life in 2019. It was a point and click workflow manager for those who
preferred that type of workflow over apps like Alfred and Launchbar. The
developer of Dragthing was an Apple employee to worked on the original
implementation of the dock in Mac OS X. He created Dragthing as an
alternate version of what the dock could have been. It was an immensely
popular app among power users and won many awards in its 24 years on the
market (1995-2019).
iCollections by developer Grzegorz Staszczyk provides an experience much like Dragthing once did. It provides a a variety of desktop interfaces for various ways to view content and control your Mac. The interface is based on what the app calls collections. These are windows or drawers containing any one of the following elements:
- Disks (including external storage and mounted disk images)
- Access to dock items from the menu bar
- Folders (e.g., Downloads, Documents) - use tabs to see multiple folders in one window
- Drop shelf for temporary file storage
- Photo frame (with slide shows)
- Web view using iOS user agent for any website
- Open processes
- Open Windows
- Trash
- Calendar
Every element has multiple customization options including color, size, position and opacity. You can use custom icons, even for native Mac applications, something you cannot do in Finder. You can combine keyboard shortcuts with point and click functions to summon collections when you need them. To use a folder as a launcher, just add application aliases to it.
iCollections can be downloaded from the developer's website to take advantage of a free trial. It can also be downloaded from the Mac App Store. The cost is:
- Monthly Subscription$2.99
- Annual Subscription$12.99
- Lifetime License$39.99
Talking Myself off the Ledge

If one of my friends came to me upset because they had been treated disrespectfully by someone at work, I'd ask them not to let themselves be defined by some random rude person. The world is full of assholes and unfortunately, we all encounter them from time to time. I'd let my friend talk it out and vent because that can help people begin to deescalate a bit. I'd help them come up with the best way to handle the situation. Was the asshole a peer, a supervisor, or a customer? Most of the time, the best advice will be to just go on living your life, doing your job and not to give the offender the satisfaction of knowing that they got to you. I would feel some compassion and gladly help them work through it because that's what friends are for.
I don't do so well when I have to give myself the same treatment. For the second time this year, I got absolutely blindsided by someone at work today. I was setting up a workstation for a chemistry professor when the admin for his department came in and announced "Make sure you check everything before he leaves because when they set up my stuff, nothing worked for two weeks." I looked at her dumbfounded.WTF? I set her up when she was hired and never got a single ticket from her afterwords. I've deployed workstations to hundreds of people on the campus and have never gotten that kind of feedback. I was embarrassed and knew better than to engage in front of the professor. I later emailed the admin and found out that part of her original issue was with her telephone, which isn't something IT handles. She doubled down on the rest of her story, though, claiming I'd left her with a laptop that couldn't access the network or print. That would be pretty difficult because part of deploying a computer is printing a page from a network printer that the user has to sign.
Wonder Woman, who actually has an important, high-powered job at the same university, unlike my low-pressure, just doing it to pass the time job, did her best to talk me off the ledge. She swears that I am a well-loved and valued person who has a reputation for being super-helpful and nice. That's absolutely what I strive to do. I swear I'm not one of those mean IT guys that fusses at people. Nor am I a slacker. I'd never want to embarrass my wife or myself like that. I genuinely like helping people out with computer issues. I've been doing this for 30 years. During my career in public K-12 education, people were more professional and respectful than what I have encountered in higher ed.
I wrote an angry email that I didn't send. As the hours pass, I am less and less upset, but I am still bothered. I know I am not responsible for this person's lack of social skills. I don't question my ability to do something as simple as issue a workstation to a new employee. I don't know what it will take for me to feel whole after this. I plan to talk to my boss tomorrow to ask him to have a word with this lady's boss. I fear that my boss, who is very much a "don't make waves" type, will opt for ignoring it, and I don't know how to handle that. I'm not working these days for the dough as much as I am to have something to get me out of the house and keep me busy. If it starts feeling like a net negative, I can just head right back into retirement.
Anyway, thanks for listening/reading as I work this out in my own head.
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Cheap Recipes for Hard Times (or Nostalgia)

I grew up in a family of five. I've never been hungry a day in my life but as a kid, we weren't eating much steak and shrimp, if you catch my drift. My mom employed tricks like using bread to stretch hamburger and making her own waffles instead of buying the ready-made kind. It was the 70s and grocery stores were not the multi-choice bonanzas they are today. It was also a time before refrigerated cargo-containers, so we didn't have the year round access to all the fresh produce you could ever want.
The biggest luxury of having a good income to me isn't the opportunity to travel or to buy whatever i want in the technology arena, it's being able to go to the grocery store and put whatever I want into my cart. When I was finally able to do that, I felt like I'd arrived. Plenty of the meals I enjoyed in my poorer days are still among my favorites.
These include:
- Chicken and rice
- Chili
- Spaghetti
- Homemade tacos
- Vegetable soup
- Tuna casserole
- Meatloaf
- Hot dogs and beans
- Pinto beans and cornbread
I enjoy fancy meals too, but these staple dishes have gotten me through some hard times. Here are a few websites with low cost recipes for anyone, not just the budget conscious.
Cheap Family Meals Under $10 - Julia Pacheco
Recipes under $10 | Budget Bytes
Ten buck dinners! – Well balanced and delicious meals for 2. $10 or less!
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mtop - A Resource Monitor for Crowded Menu Bars
I regularly check MacMenuBar.com for new additions.
Today i found a nice little app called mtop.
It's a monitor for each CPU core, your GPU and your RAM. It also
provides PIDs for running processes. Apps like iStat Menus and Stats are
great at doing this, but they take up far too much room in the menu bar
for my taste. I just want a single icon I can click on to get the
information I want. I don't need a heads-up display.
There isn't much to configure in mtop. You can choose one of eight different themes. Clicking a button reveals the running processes, which are hidden by default. The app is available in the Mac App Store for $.99.
I updated my /now page - What I’m reading (The Hot Zone) and watching (Silo), plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, (Phone case) and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.

The Modern Miracles

I just returned from the grocery store. On the way home, I thought how different the experience is now compared to what it was like going with my mother back in the 70s. Back then, we had dramatically fewer choices than we have today. There were two kinds of apples back in the day, red apples and yellow apples. Today, there are a dozen or more to choose from. I like watermelon. Check that. I love watermelon. I could eat it every day. Thanks to the miracle of refrigerated shipping containers. In 2024, I can eat it every day. I no longer have to wait for the middle of summer to get here before I can enjoy my favorite treat.
Did you ever make a special trip to someone's house because they owned a record that you didn't have, and you just wanted to listen to a song from it? Kids these days don't have that experience. They can listen to practically any song ever recorded whenever they want to through the miracle of Spotify and Apple Music. If your budget has room for it, you can go from hearing about a book for the first time to reading it in the span of a couple of minutes, thanks to the availability of downloads from the major publishers. The same goes for movies and TV shows. We don't even mention instant gratification anymore because all gratification comes immediately, it seems.
My grandmother lived most of her life in a square mile patch in a rural community in southeastern North Carolina. She never left the country, and she rarely left the state. I have grandchildren still in school who have visited Europe more times than I have. My son, who is single and has a good job, often travels to cities across the country on the weekends just to take in art museums and experience new cities. I remember going on a field trip in the sixth grade from the small town I lived in to the state fair in Raleigh. One of my classmates was terrified as the bus crossed the bridge over the Cape Fear River. That bridge was only two miles from her home, and she had never been across it before. In so many ways, the world is much smaller today than it was in the past.
Brilliant people have designed systems to make my personal information available wherever I go. From my work computer to my phone to my laptop at home, I can work on the same document and look at the same pictures with little to no effort.
I can clearly remember the first time I retrieved a local weather report from a computer. When I was growing up, you could listen to the radio at a certain time of day or, better yet, wait for the six o'clock news to get a weather report. The idea that I could get one whenever I wanted to just by typing on a keyboard was miraculous, and it impressed me to no end. Even though the modern internet seems designed more to take money out of my wallet than for any other purpose, it still serves as an endless source of fascinating information available whenever I want it. Brilliant people have designed systems to make my personal information available wherever I go. From my work computer to my phone to my laptop at home, I can work on the same document and look at the same pictures with little to no effort.
Like most people, I take all of this for granted and seldom take the time to consider what a true miracle it is and how rapidly it has all evolved. I even get irritated when my mind can conceive of an idea that no one has invented yet. Actually, that rarely happens. People seem to come up with ideas and make them realities faster than I can master the skills to take advantage of them.
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Where to Find Discounted Software

I've shared plenty of places to get free software over the past few months. I use plenty of it. Many people say that when software is free, you are paying with your data. That isn't always true. There are plenty of independent developers making FOSS tools that aren't data collectors, but there are also popular programs that collect as much as they can get away with. Take the time to read the privacy policy from Threads, the Meta microblogging platform. Sometimes, you just can't find certain features in free software, and you have to rely on a paid product. No one likes to pay full price, so here are a few places to get name - brand software titles at a discount.
Student App Centre
Student App Centre is a paid, but cheap service that provides discounts on more than 200 well-known software titles to anyone with an education affiliation who can verify it via email or providing documentation. I'm nether a student, nor a member of the faculty, but I am employed by a university and that qualifies me. Some of their popular titles are Downie, Better Display, Little Snitch, Al Dente, Cleanshot X and Parallels. A membership is $21.40.
Bundle Hunt
Bundle Hunt is a website that periodically offers 40–50 titles at the time for very steep discounts. I have purchased dozens of programs from them over the years. They email you download links and serial numbers for your purchases, but they also have an online database for you to reference. I recently re-downloaded an app I bought nine years ago. Some of the current titles they have on sale are Mountain Duck, MacPilot, MonsterWriter and Smultron.
App Sumo
App Sumo specializes in business software, although they sometimes have consumer titles and training discounts available. Their titles include apps for SEO, static website creation, CRMs, email marketing and lead generation among many others.
Setapp
Setapp is a $9.99 service that lets you download, install and use over 250 quality Mac apps. I currently have over 40 of their apps downloaded. They offer some of the most highly rated programs in the Mac ecosystem, including Bartender, Default Folder X, CleanShot X, CleanMyMac, Dropzone, Downie, Permute, Houdah Spot, Mind Node, Pathfinder, Soulver, Ulysses and MarsEdit. I can't recommend them highly enough.
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Simplenote - Free, Rock Solid and Dependable for Over a Decade
Simplenote by Automattic is a
free cross-platform plain text / Markdown notes app for macOS, iOS,
Android, Windows and Linux. It's been around for over a decade and I
have never known it to go down. Automattic is the company behind Word
Press and Day One, so it's no fly-by-night enterprise.
One of the primary benefits of using Simplenote is the speed. It syncs behind the scenes and opens quickly, regardless of platform. Each note has a history, and you can view changes you've made to it over time. Notes are easy to share on a Mac using the system share sheet. If you don't have access to a device on which you have Simplenote installed, you can get to your notes in a browser.
Notes in Simplenote are organized by tags. Use as many as you want. You can also do simple searches of your notes via text strings. Simplenote is compatible with Apple's new writing tools, which means you have access to dictation, proofreading, rewriting, spelling and grammar correction. Information about each note, including creation date, modification date, character count and word count is available at the click of a button. Like most modern apps, Simplenote has a light and dark mode. You can also control the default text size. Important notes can be pinned to the top of your notes list.
The Simplenote API is open to developers. There are several other note-taking apps on various platforms that can access your notes database. On such app is nvPY for macOS.
Holiday Season Life

I've worked in education since the 90s. December is one of my favorite months, particularly now that I am in higher ed. Our final exams were last week and the students are gone until the middle of January. The only ones left on campus are our contingent of international students on Davis scholarships, most of whom cannot afford to fly back to their country of origin for the holidays. In the IT department, the first part of the month is reserved for projects we can't do while school is in session. This year we are replacing wireless access points in a couple of buildings, which involves much climbing of ladders and talking on radios to make sure the new devices come online.
On the personal side, even though we are not religious, Wonder Woman and I still have a tree and decorations inside the house. My only contribution to that happening is carrying the boxes of supplies from under the house into the living room and then getting out of the way. She gets everything put up efficiently and quickly because that's the way she moves through life. She gets things accomplished while I am still deciding how to get started. Today I worked on a couple of my own projects while she did her thing while Christmas music filled our living room.
We, and by we, once again I mean she, buys all the Christmas gifts online. We are not the type of people to go bargain hunting in crowded stores with crowded parking lots. For a couple of weeks at the beginning of the month, we come home to what we call "papages," a word coined by our grandson for the boxes the man in the brown truck leaves on your porch. Then, in one marathon session, she wraps them all and puts them under the tree. My part is staying out of the way.
I enjoy some special foods during the season. I am partial to Clementines, the small, easy to peel tangerines and lots of salty country ham and southern style biscuits. Although I love the taste of eggnog, I avoid it because it reminds me too much of my drinking days, when I used to have it with bourbon at Christmas. My sobriety date is December 28, so the last days of my drinking career sadly happened during Christmas of 2008.
Our travel during the holidays is pre-determined and has changed little over the course of our marriage. On Christmas Eve, we gather at my in-laws, who live near the coast. They are of Italian heritage, so the big meal is lasagna. After we eat and exchange gifts that evening, Wonder Woman and I will drive another couple of hours up the coast to my mother's. She is a widow and without us would be alone. We will spend the night with her and visit some in the morning before making the drive across the state to my daughter's house.
We often take a getaway trip during the holidays, usually to the mountains. This fall, our favorite mountain towns were all extensively damaged by the flooding resulting from Hurricane Helene. The town of Asheville just started pumping potable water two weeks ago. As a result, this year we are traveling down to Savannah, Georgia to enjoy its delights. We thought about taking the train, but our recent Amtrak experiences have not been positive, so we are going to drive.
Whatever your December plans happen to be, I hope you get some time off and an opportunity to relax and to see your family if that brings you joy.
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This Week's Bookmarks - Maximize PTO, Best in Show, Public Domain 2025, History of Playing Cards, Best Soccer Goals, French Resistance Fighter, Get off Twitter

Request These Days Off to Maximize Your PTO in 2025 | Lifehacker
Meet Vito the Pug, Winner of the 2024 National Dog Show | TIME
What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2025? — The Public Domain Review
The History of Playing Cards: The Evolution of the Modern Deck
Best Soccer Goals of 2024 - A Playlist
Madeleine Riffaud, resistance fighter, internationalist 1924-2024 – Workers World
Default Apps for 2024

A year ago, I was just getting back into the tech scene after not paying close attention for a couple of years. As I was updating and cleaning up my RSS feeds, I saw many people talking about their default apps as a result of an episode of the podcast Hemispheric Views.. I learned about a lot of great software that I'd missed out on during my hiatus. I wanted to get in on the fun as well, so I started a blog for that express purpose, and the rest is history.
A full 12 months have passed, and some apps have been replaced or discarded over time. Here is my current list. Apps with a ⭐ are new choices since last year.
- 📨 Mail Client:⭐ Kiwi for Gmail/ Work Outlook via Office365
- 📮 Mail Server: Gmail
- 📝 Notes: Obsidian and ⭐Scratchpad
- ✅ To-do: Things3
- 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: ProCamera
- 🟦 Photo Management: Photos.app
- 📆 Calendar: Fantastical legacy features, not paid
- 📁 Cloud File Storage: Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox
- 📖 RSS: Inoreader
- 🙎🏻♂️ Contacts: Cardhop
- 🌐 Browser: Vivaldi on macOS and iOS
- 💬 Chat: Messages.app, ⭐ Discord, ⭐ Caprine for Facebook Messenger
- 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
- 📑 Read It Later: ⭐ Pocket
- 📜 Word Processing: Obsidian and Drafts
- 📈 Spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel at work, Google Sheets at home
- 📊 Presentations: nope
- 🛒 Shopping Lists: Anylist, a great app!
- 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Monarch on Mac and iOS
- 📰 News: Google News, ⭐ProPublica, ⭐DemocracyNow!
- 🎵 Music: Apple Music
- 🎤 Podcasts: Overcast
- 🔐 Password Management: ⭐Apple Passwords
- 🐘 Mastodon:Ivory, social.lol, 500.social
- 🦋 Bluesky: ⭐ Skeets, ⭐Deck.blue
- 🚀 Launcher: Raycast
- 🎞️ Media Tracking: Trakt via Watcht, Sequel
- 💻 Screenshot Tool: Cleanshot X
- ✍🏻 Blogging: Micro.blog, OMG.LOL, Scribbles, BearBlog
- 🔗 Websites: Amerpie, Living Out Loud, AppAddict, Linkage
- ⚙️ Automation: Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, Popclip, Better Touch Tool
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Commander One as a Finder Replacement
The Mac Finder is fine for casual users, but if your use cases
involve a lot of file management to handle photography or videography
related tasks, heavy downloading, web publishing or other more advanced
tasks, you'd be well served to look for a replacement. Commander One by
Electronic Teams, Inc. Is a serviceable option. It has a dual pane
interface, with each pane featuring unlimited tabs. There are three view
options per pane: details, list and icons.
The Commander One features list is long:
- Easily toggle hidden files
- Customizable fonts and colors
- Bookmark favorite file locations
- Customize any of the numerous hotkeys available for file actions
- Queue file operations
- ZIP support
- Built in file viewer
- Root access to files
Search
- Regex support
- Search file contents
- Built in advanced search plus Spotlight search
Pro Pack
All of the features listed above are part of the free version of Commander One. If you purchase the Pro Pack for $29.95 you get the following:
- FTP Manager
- Access connected MTP, iOS and Android devices
- Connect to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Box, OneDrive, BackBlaze, WebDAV
- Terminal Emulator
- Advanced compression and decompression tools
Other Finder replacement options are Qspace and Pathfinder.
Nope
A list of situations and questions that deserve a negative reaction:

I decided it was time to expand my /nope page so that I could get all the Bah Humbug! Out of system before we get any deeper into the holiday season.
- No, Mr. Paywall, I do not have to pay to read. I haz skillz.
- Pay TV with commercials is an oxymoron
- I don't want to upsize, super-size or biggie size. Bruh, have you seen my waist?
- Person at my door, I don't want to buy magazines, home security or anything else
- I want gas, not a carwash for my rusted out 2005 Camry
- How about you change your password, huh?
- I don't want to talk to the pharmacist. I just want my pills.
- I never want a $12 desert
- Don't want to talk about Jesus or any other Republican candidate
- Why didn't you apply those updates to macOS last night like you said you were?
- I have enough Facebook friends
- Read a EULA, are you screwing with me?
- Try to put decaf in this cup. I dare you.
- Nobody wants to see your Obsidian graph
- Being told to "like and subscribe"
- Unless I ask, don't try to drown me with affiliate links
- Not debating you on anything unless I like you
- Dear Dr.'s office receptionist - I will write my information one time on one form
- New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN
- Centrist Democrats
- Salvation Army
- Any medication suggested by an insurance company instead of a doctor
- To spammers - every part of my bodies is the size I want it to be
- Nickleback
- Volunteering for anything at work. People get paid to manage, so manage.
- "Live and let live" with fascists
- Not following back any Only Fans ladies, no matter how nice they are
- Windows 11, Android, Bubonic Plague
- Using SEO on my non-monetized blog
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Cloud Storage Management Apps
The longer you use a computer, the more access to resources you
accumulate. I'm old, so I have more accounts than I know what to do
with. When it comes to cloud storage, I have access to Google Drive, One
Drive, Box and Dropbox, although I only pay for Google Drive. I once
signed up an entire middle school's faculty to Dropbox with my referral
link, so I have a large sized free tier. I got 50GB from Box so long ago
that I no longer remember how. OneDrive is provided by my job.
Each of these providers, along with other cloud storage solutions, provide their own software for mounting your storage at login. There's no way I want to have four separate apps running in the background when I can consolidate them into one app that does the same thing and in some cases provides more utility. Mac users can choose between three types of access. I prefer using a network drive mapper. The app I use is CloudMounter because it is included in Setapp, although it often goes on sale. A similar product, Mountain Duck, is currently on sale for $7 at Bundlehunt.
Here is a list of options for Mac users.
File Managers/Browsers
- Odrive - $99 a year
- Multcloud - $189
- Raidrive $34 a year (limited free tier)
- Expandrive $75 lifetime
FTP/SFTP/Cloud Clients
Mounters (Network Drive Mappers)
- MountainDuck - $39
- CloudMounter - $75
- Netdrive - $50
A Collection of Mastodon Tools
I'm maintaining a growing collection of links to various Mastodon resources. You can bookmark this page or subscribe to the collection via RSS.
With these tools, you can do things like:
- View RSS feeds as Mastodon links using RSS Parrot
- Find Accounts popular with your friends follow that you aren't following with Followgraph
- Use the Mastodon web client, Phanpy
- Get all your Fediverse questions answered at Fedi.tips
- Get stats on your account at Mastometrics
- Get stats on the entire fediverse at Fedi.db
- Learn how to bridge you mastodon account with Bluesky
- Learn to use Mastodon search
- See other collections of mastodon tools
- See meta posts on the Fediverse from the Fediverse
- Find cool accounts and topics to follow on Fedi.directory
- Find tending topics
- Explore your Fediverse connection by servers, follows and followers
- Use the web Mastodon client, Elk
- Use the wen Mastodon client, Statuzer
- Schedule your Mastodon posts with Fedica
Checking In, How Are You Holding Up?

It's early December. The sun is setting about as early as it ever does. I don't know about you, but it's very nearly dark by the time I get home from work. It's been about a month since an election that shocked and saddened many people. Politically, things are happening exactly like we knew they would when Trump won. The felon is nominating other criminals for jobs. So far, he's selected over a dozen current and former staffers from Fox News for government positions. There are less than 20 shopping days until Christmas, if you're into that. Hopefully, you aren't an employee of UPS or FedEx because December has to be the hell month of all hell months for those folks. One more year and we will be halfway through the 2020s. How in the hell is that even possible?
The people reading this are an eclectic bunch. One big group is my family. We are loyal, and also we like to know what's going on with each other. There are the folks I know in real life who see these links on social media and stop in from time to time. Then there are my Internet friends, many of them bloggers themselves. We have a sort of mutual support group where we read each other's blogs. Finally, there are a bunch of Internet strangers who know me through one of my many passions, but most likely through my witty political commentary or through my many posts about all things technical on the Mac side of the house.
If you are reading this, and we are strangers, feel free to introduce yourself. I take pride in answering every email I get. I follow most folks back on social media, too. Likewise, I may not always have the best in-person social skills, but I'm generally pretty nice on the Internet. I want to make sure that folks have someone to talk to during what are really some frightening times, and for many lonely ones to boot.
Please let me know how you are holding up after the election. Are you scared? I am. Are you mad? I am that too. Do you like the holiday season, or is it stressful for you? I'm on the side that likes it. I get a good long break from work. I like my family, and I am happy to spend extra time with them during the holidays. Even though Wonder Woman and I have a whole pile of kids and grandkids, we can afford to remember them all. It wasn't always like that. If you struggle with that part of the equation, I will understand.
Do you have any plans for the new year, any resolutions you are thinking about making? I want to be able to go on longer walks again myself. I'm hoping to take a fun trip with Wonder Woman in 2025, and I don't want to have to stay behind while she goes for runs or climbs mountains, not that I will be doing either of those things, but I would like to have some leisurely lakeside strolls. Not only that, but I am also contemplating retiring for good. I like the financial freedom working my post-career job brings, but there is more to give life meaning than one's occupation.
The universe is neutral. It doesn't hate you, but it certainly doesn't love you. The Internet can be a frightening morass of noise at times. There are people trying to cut through that. Personal independent bloggers offer little pieces of themselves all over the place. Some of them are quite funny. Others are strident but will give you real food for thought. If you take time to investigate this little slice of the online world, you're almost guaranteed to find someone who resonates with you. If you can't, please let me know and I will offer you some suggestions.
It's tempting sometimes to create an online persona, but it isn't worth the effort. Just be you. You have value, and you're special because you are unique. Don't try to model yourself on some plastic influencer. Live your life and share the parts you feel comfortable sharing. Start a blog. Get a pen pal. Find people who are interested in the things you like. We are all out here looking for one another. Get found. Don't forget to check in once in a while.
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Sandwich Origin Stories

During my time as a long distance hiker, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about food. I was constantly hungry, desperately trying to take in more calories than I was using making my way north through the Appalachian Mountains. More often than not, my go to order when I was lucky enough to find a diner or a deli while passing through the small mountain trail towns was the humble hamburger. There was a place in Hot Springs, NC that had a burger called the Hiker Special weighing in at 12 oz of ground beef. I ate two of them.
I still enjoy hamburgers and other sandwiches of all kinds. My favorite fast food-ish restaurant is Jersey Mike's Sub Shop where i get the #13 Italian fixed the traditional way plus banana peppers. They have gluten free bread for Wonder Woman who sticks with the lower calorie turkey and provolone.
Other than liverwurst, I've never met a sandwich I didn't like. They are best with good fresh bread and the toppings piled on, but I've eaten many, many plain bologna and cheese sandwiches on loaf bread in my day.
Here's the fascinating story behind some of the most popular sandwiches in America.
Who Really Invented the Reuben? | Saveur
Cuban Sandwich: The Complete History and Guide
The History of the Grilled Cheese | The Committed Pig | NJ
The Fried Bologna Sandwich Is A Southern Classic
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Royal TSX for Remote Management
In my day job, I provide IT support at a small private university.
Because I have a good boss, the computer I use as a daily driver is am
M3 iMac. Most of the users I support are using Windows 10 and 11,
however. Microsoft doesn't make a version of server tools for ARM
processor-based computers. This means that I am unable to use a VM to
run Windows apps like Active Directory Users and Computers or SCCM. On
my Mac, I can use browser-based tools like InTune and Entra but for
other apps, I rely on a remote connection to a Windows machine for
access to the tools I need.
My solution is the lite version of the app, Royal TSX. This free version lets me use up to 10 connections to remote computers and 10 sets of credentials. I primarily use the RDP plugin, but Royal TSX also supports:
- TeamViewer sessions
- Apple Remote Desktop and VNC
- Terminal sessions
- File transfers
- VMWare connection
- HyperV connections
- Running Power Shell scripts on remote computers
When I have issues using the new Windows app for RDP for unknown Byzantine reasons, Royal TSX comes through and allows me to connect. It's a neat tool to have in my bag. The paid version is $53 and allows unlimited connection and unlimited credentials.
What Passes for Justice

In September 1991, I was working first shift at the medium-sized prison that had employed me for the previous five years. My co-workers were a mixed group of white folks, African Americans, Native Americans and one officer from Puerto Rico. Most of us had served in the military. Almost none of us had any college. Our spouses worked in various places: the few remaining textile mills, a Converse shoe plant and various chicken and turkey processing facilities, including Imperial Foods, located in Hamlet, NC, about 30 miles away. We'd finished the inmates' breakfast meal and were in the process of getting the prison through its daily cleaning when the switchboard starting putting through calls to the officers wive's who worked at Imperial. Something bad had happened, a fire. Over 100 firefighters had been called in, and the news was grim. There were many, many people on route to the hospital, many missing and the first bodies were being brought out. We had to call in people from second shift to come in early, so the worried husbands could get to the site of the fire.
During the next few days, the survivors began to tell the story of the rapidly spreading fire that was fueled by an ad hoc repair to a hydraulic line that burst right next to a sizzling hot fryer for cooking chicken. Few people knew that although the plant had two previous fires within the last decade, it had never had a state safety inspection. As the workers fled, they encountered locked and chained fire exits, closed at the order of the company's owner, who was worried about people stealing food from his company. Only one group of employees managed to kick open a door. That door, covered in sooty boot prints, is on display today at the museum of American History in Washington, DC. It bears testament to one of the deadliest industrial disasters in state history. Of the 90 people inside Imperial Foods when the fire broke out, 25 died and 54 were injured, many of them suffering lifelong ill effects from smoke and chemical inhalation.
Eventually, the owner of the plant, Emmet Roe was charged with 25 counts of manslaughter, He pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 years, of which he served only four. He was also fined the equivalent of $1.8 million. The plant was permanently closed. Based in part on public outrage, Jim Martin, only the state's second Republican governor in 100 years, nearly doubled the number of industrial inspectors to make workplace inspections more common.
The Hamlet fire is remarkable because it actually resulted in some accountability and change. For years, American companies scoffed at toothless safety laws and the relative impotence of inspectors. Paying fines was easier than paying for safe working conditions. There is an ongoing and concerted effort currently under way to cut through the so-called red tape of government regulations that supposedly make it too difficult to do business. Many of the regulations are ones created for worker safety. The state of Texas repealed a regulation that mandated water breaks for outdoor workers in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave of 100+ degree days. It interfered with worker productivity.
Even before the US elected a 34x convicted felon to be its president, most people were already aware of the two tiered justice system under which this country operates. We saw Bill Cosby released from prison despite evidence of dozens of sexual assaults. We saw Trump pardon crony after crony. Even in the local news in my hometown, there have long been reports of the wives of generals from the nearby Army base, Ft. Liberty (née Bragg) getting traffic tickets fixed, of the sons of prominent businessmen getting caught with drugs and guns at a public school and getting away scott free. The owner of a local car dealership not only bought his way out of charges for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy, the judge would not allow the records of the court proceedings to be made public in violation of state open records laws. It's an old story and one that gets repeated frequently.
When I see a rich and powerful person get real justice and pay a tangible price for decisions that have had horrible effects on working-class people, I really don't care whether the punishment was extrajudicial or not. The system we have is designed not to punish the powerful, but to keep the poor in line. Eat the rich doesn't have to be an idle threat.
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Health Insurance Companies Are Evil

It's common knowledge that the for-profit medical industrial complex in the United States is broken and has been so for a long time. Bills are inscrutable. Insurance companies provide little help when trying to determine the cost of care patients are considering, if they have that luxury. There may be occasional bright spots, but almost everyone who deals with the system has a personal horror story. For-profit companies are beholden to their stockholders, not patients, you know—sick people. Even non-profits have dubious decision-making skills. I am in long-term (16-year) recovery from substance abuse. I have a mood disorder that requires me to take medication daily. It's no big deal. I was diagnosed in the '80s, so I've dealt with it almost all my adult life. I once got a letter from my insurance company that explained they noticed how expensive my medication was. They suggested I ask the doctor to prescribe Valium instead, a highly addictive and often abused drug. They suggested that to me, a recovering addict.
I dealt with bone-on-bone arthritis for years. The only relief was a shot that I could get every six months. The red tape, delays, and stalling by my insurance company (I was a state employee in NC) would often result in delays of two to three months, stretching the time between shots up to nine months. Arthritis is a painful and debilitating condition that doesn't just get better. The policies of a company trying to save money resulted in my being denied coverage I was promised as part of my employment. I lived in pain and grew depressed when I met so many stone walls. This went on for years.
I am sorry that the CEO of United Healthcare was murdered in the street outside of a meeting for investors in that company. I am not surprised, though. If I thought some exorbitantly paid executive was responsible for the pain, suffering, and death of someone I loved because his company was trying to provide maximum value to shareholders, I might just consider violence myself.
Health insurance CEOs rake in millions: Here's the top 10 list
How Insurance Companies Get You to Pay Higher Costs for Less Coverage
Remote Helper for Mac
Remote Helper for Mac is
the companion for the iOS app, Remote
Mouse and Keyboard. When used together, your iOS device can control
a Mac, a PC, an Apple TV or an iPad.
The features include:
- Control the cursor on a Mac and serve as a virtual mouse to select, double click or right click any element
- Enter text on a Mac from the iOS keyboard
- Media controls - mute, pause, volume up, volume down, next track, previous track. Works in multiple apps
- View your computer screen on your phone
- Issue system commands from your phone to your Mac - sleep, shut down, restart
- Launch any app on your Mac from your phone
- Use Siri on your phone to send commands to your Mac
- Run custom AppleScripts on your Mac from your phone. An example script is included that opens Netflix in the Chrome browser.
The Mac app is free to download, but it requires the iOS app to actually do anything. The iOS app has a lifetime purchase. The amount differs depending on where you are. Today in the US, it was $10. There is an option to subscribe on a month by month basis for $1.99 with a seven-day free trial.
What Do You Miss?

I am not one of those people who longs for the good old days. For big groups of people, the progress made in gender equity, civil rights, LGBT rights and other areas was much too hard fought to ever consider going back. I am very fond of progress, technology and medical advances. I'm happy to live in a time when HIV is no longer a death sentence. Likewise, I resent the hell out of the empty-headed RFK's of the world who poison people's minds with their anti-vax rhetoric. Having said all of that, I will admit to missing little pieces of the past.
I miss affordable prices a lot. Getting any beverage in a restaurant costs several dollars. I saw an app today that does one simple thing for Mac users. It toggles a feature (the FN key) on and off. The developer was asking a modest twenty-five dollars for the privilege of using it. As someone who has owned several thousand-dollar cars and who currently drives a 2005 Camry, I am outraged at the people who think a $30K car is cheap. The margin on simple things like shoes and eyeglass frames is robbery by another name. Going to the movies, a concert or a ball game is outrageous. I know, I know. Get off my lawn.
I miss the time when our society wasn't polarized about politics the way it is today. Sorry, Obama, there definitely is a red America and a blue America. I can't even.
I miss the time when people could live off a single income earned by a high school graduate. I supported my wife and son in the 80s by framing houses and serving in the National Guard. Twenty-five years later, my youngest daughter and her husband both worked full-time and had a lower standard of living than we did back in the day.
Oddly enough, in my own experience, racial self-segregation was less pronounced in the 80s than it is now. At my high school, the sports teams, student government and clubs were all diverse. Over the past forty years, I've watched the younger generation choose to have white and black clubs and white and black activities. Other POC just try to get in where they fit in. By the time my kids got to high school, the football team was almost all POC, while the cheerleading squad was lily-white.
I miss the days when security wasn't the overarching, ever present concern in tech. The impediment to efficiency at work because of security is huge. We can't put local admin accounts with static passwords on workstations to facilitate getting access to them. They have to use a server generated rotating password that I have to look up whenever I need to do something. I can't even use an admin account to log in on my own computer (on the PC side). I have to elevate privileges using my super-extra long admin password to each app I need. Two-factor authentication is neat, as long as it works. The aggravation of dealing with people who get new phones or have other hardware issues is just another wrinkle. Passkeys seem neat until you try to use them when you work on multiple devices.
Like I said initially, I don't want to go back. I don't think life was better 40 years ago, but that doesn't mean every change has been positive.
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The Resistance to the Nazis - Lessons from the Past

For some reason, resisting fascism and the historical lessons from courageous Germans in World War Two has been on my mind lately. Having been involved with social movements and protests over the last quarter of a century, I'm aware of the conservative attitude towards any group of people who don't wrap themselves in the flag. Modern police forces are terrified of ANTIFA and anarchists while they simultaneously ignore or tacitly support right-wing groups. Republican led legislatures across the country have passed laws designed to crack down on protests and those laws are always enforced selectively against POC, the poor, young people and anyone who opposes the power structure. Some states have made it legal for drivers to run over protesters who block traffic, essentially creating a de facto death penalty. Such is the morality of the "all lives matter" crowd.
For information about role models from the past, see these links.
German resistance to Nazism - Wikipedia
German Resistance to Hitler | Holocaust Encyclopedia
A Brief History of Anti-Fascism | Smithsonian
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Four Single Purpose Apps - Cheap/Free
There's something to be said for apps that do one thing well. Here
are a few that I've found lately.
FNable - If you use your function keys much, you may grow tired of having to toggle them with the FN key. Be default, macOS treats function keys as system controls. This little app allows you to toggle the behavior simply be pressing and holding the FN key for three seconds. You definitely want to find this app on sale though. It is regularly priced at a whopping $25 . It is currently available at Bundlehunt for $1.50.
Quill - Quill is a menu bar notes app similar to Scrap Paperand Scratchpad with one big difference, you can use images in Quill notes. The notes sync across Macs, but there isn't an iOS app. You can, however, export your Quill notes easily enough if you want to view them on your phone. It is $.99 in the App Store.
Trace - Trace is a minimalist time tracking app. When you manually start a session of, it records the apps you work on and the time you spend in them. You can pause and resume sessions. It reports the amount of time you spend in each app and other facts, like your most used app. It is a free app. For more detailed automatic reports, try Activity Watch, also free.
SpaceSaver - With SpaceSaver, you can save the state of your open applications and windows, and easily restore them later. You can have multiple sessions and switch between them with ease. It doesn't have the prettiest interface but what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in function and price - free!
This Is What I Believe - December IndieWeb Carnival

This month's IndieWeb Carnival is hosted by Zinzy and the topic is belief.
This is what I believe:
The Universe is Neutral. It Neither Loves Nor Hates You - I am all for the power of positive thinking. I tend to act as if things are going to turn out my way most of the time. Pessimistic people, and you surely know a Debbie Downer or two, are a drag to be around, and they grate on my nerves after a while. I am not a Pollyanna, though. I do not believe that "everything will be all right" because I am fully aware that I could be in a car accident on the way home or that my house could burn down tonight. Bad things happen to good people every day. What I believe, based on evidence, is my absolute ability to deal with whatever happens. I have a proven track record of living through everything that has ever happened to me. Everything can be overcome. If you don't believe that, read Mans Search for Meaning about how concentration camp inmates survived.
People Are the Most Powerful When They Are Organized - Most of the rights and privileges we enjoy today, our freedoms, if you will, were not won on the battlefield. They were won on picket lines and in mass movements against the entrenched power structure. The rights of women, people of color, children, workers and the 99% were won by organized groups of people who strategized, struggled and fought and sometimes died to demand rights we take for granted today. The powerful know this and do their best to keep us divided along racial, cultural and class lines so that we won't do it again.
It Is Possible to Overcome Nature and Nurture - We are not locked into an immutable set of values instilled in us by our genetics or our environment. Free will is a hell of a drug, to paraphrase Rick James. I am a son of the South. I have been surrounded by conservative Christianity, institutional white supremacy, patriarchal behavior patterns and unquestioning nationalism my entire life, but I am not an adherent to any of it. The easier and softer way is to go with the flow. Don't make waves. Accept the status quo. Countless people can't even define their belief system because they are too damned busy getting ready for the next MCU movie or the coming weekend's football games. I'm sure there are areas where I need to increase my awareness too, but I try as best I can to be a part of the solution to society's problems. I am not neutral about much.
Curiosity and Sense of Humor are The Most Attractive Human Traits - I'm not an education major. I haven't studied learning styles, but I know there are plenty of ways to add to one's personal knowledge base. Whether it's reading books, surfing the Internet, interrogating the people in your life, or something else, there are an infinite number of things to learn. People who have a sense of wonder and a thirst for knowledge are my favorites. When that is coupled with the ability to laugh, to see the absurd, and to enjoy little moments of serendipity, it's hard for me not to be drawn towards a person.
When You Live a Fearful Life, You're Living Like All the Bad Things Have Already Happened to You - I am firmly in the camp with those who believe that asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission. I do not have on ongoing CYA strategy at work or in my private life. There is something inauthentic and sad about people who constantly self-censor or wait for others to make decisions for them. Granted, I am not rich nor am I a CIO. What I am is generally happy and productive, with plenty of room in my mind for things that I enjoy. I believe in acting in good faith. My experience has shown me that doing so is what works for me, more so than endless plotting to get ahead and avoid ruffling feathers. I feel confident that I can defend most of what I do to anyone who questions it.
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Police Misconduct and The Promised Immunity

After the Ohio State vs. Michigan football game this past weekend, the players (ages 18-22) got into a scuffle on the field when Michigan players attempted to plant their team flag in on the Ohio State logo at midfield after winning. Within moments there was a massive police presence on the field. The police tried to separate the players, and when they didn't immediately comply, some of the officers deployed pepper spray - against student-athletes on national television. It wasn't a good look.
I've never been a police officer, but I worked within the criminal justice system for seven years as a correctional officer, spending eight hours a day with convicted criminals so I have some understanding of the stress of the job. Not everyone is cut out to be a cop. If you are easily frightened, angered or slow to make important decisions, being a police officer is probably not the job for you. There is no shame in that. Unfortunately, the US court system is set up in a way that allows police to assert that they fear for the safety to justify just about any action up to murdering children holding play toys.
Nationwide there is an issue with sub-standard police officers moving from one agency to another as they get fired for incompetence or misconduct. President Trump has promised to give police blanket immunity for crimes they commit, regardless of the circumstances. Under his policies, police will be free to choke people to death whenever they feel like it without ever facing justice. The evidence proves that they will do exactly that.
National Police Misconduct Database - Center for Justice Research
10 Outrageous Police Misconduct: A Compilation of Videos - YouTube
"The Wandering Officer" by Ben Grunwald and John Rappaport
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Browser Deputy from the Folks at Anybox
These days, it is not uncommon for someone to have hundreds of
open tabs in as browser. I usually run about 40-50 myself. I've tried
several solutions to quickly find the tab I'm looking for without much
success. Since installing Browser Deputy, I've been
pleased with the way it incorporates into my workflow. I can summon the
app with a hotkey and quickly find a tab, a bookmark or an item from my
browser history, no matter what app I am in.
Browser Deputy works with the following browsers:
- Safari
- Chrome
- Edge
- Brave
- Firefox
- Vivaldi
- Opera
- Arc
Aside from providing a quick search for browsers, Browser Deputy also lets you perform web searches with various built-in engines or custom ones that you add yourself. I use a custom Google search that removes all the AI crud and provides the good old ten blue links that we once took for granted. It was easy to add to the list.
The other useful feature in Browser Deputy is the ability to search menu commands in whatever open app you happen to be in, not just browsers. It doesn't give you a heads-up display of the commands like KeyClu, but it will activate any command you search for.
Browser Deputy is available for download from the dev's website. A three machine license is $11.99.
The Worst Thing You've Ever Done, Grace and Forgiveness

A few years ago, a man in his 60s here in NC, an amateur cyclist of some renown, won a race against a field of mostly younger riders. He was selected for a random drug test, which he failed. In his quest to remain competitive, the man, who was already legendary in the local racing community, a mentor to many and a man held in high esteem, resorted to cheating to increase his chances of winning a relatively meaningless bicycle race. In the process, he made the news, was banned from racing and severely damaged a hard-earned reputation. When I heard about it, I was livid. I didn't know the man. I knew of him. Some of my friends frequently made the one-hour trip to his hometown to train with him. Everyone called him The Old Man. My attempt to carry on a lifelong love affair with sports was already severely damaged by the steroid era in baseball. I adopted pro cycling as my new favorite, only to discover that almost every famous racer of the era was a cheat. It deeply affected me then and now.
I took to social media to vent, as one does. I guy who knows me and The Old Man asked me a question that stuck with me about the whole situation. Is it fair to judge someone solely for the worst thing they have ever done? Is it? Society does it routinely in criminal justice cases. Sure, they take some mitigating circumstances into account, but if you mess up bad enough, you are going to prison despite your otherwise saintly life. I knew more than one person serving a life sentence when I worked in the correctional system who had but a single yet horrible conviction.
In the army, a well-worn but true statement is that one “oh shit” wipes out one hundred “attaboys.” People remember Bill Buckner a lot more for making an error in the World Series than they do for his otherwise illustrious career. In my own tiny little personal Internet, one developer's failure to adequately address a mistake is still reverberating in our community months after the fact.
I suspect that in moments of absolute honesty, most of us could make a confession that could potentially turn large swaths of our acquaintances against us. Maybe we bullied someone or we were needlessly unkind when we didn't have to be. Perhaps as ignorant and uninformed youngsters, we indulged in behavior that we are ashamed of now, like listening to Rush Limbaugh or voting for Reagan.
I believe in extending grace to my fellow humans these days to the extent that I am able. I believe, as I said, that everyone has that one worst thing, and I try not to define people by that. If they are serial assholes, I let them go on their way, but in most cases, people aren't that way. I learned in 12-Step recovery that resentments against other people are the number one offenders in a person's life who is trying to stay sober. I was a miserable person with a whole pile of grievances 16 years ago. In the intervening time, I've worked hard to become forgiving, not for anyone's sake but my own. It's liberating and a heartily recommend it. You aren't letting your ex off the hook when you stop centering on your grievances, You are letting yourself off.
I'm not one who preaches against being judgmental. Frankly, I think using your judgment is a survival skill, and it is impossible not to exercise it. You can't stick with the winners if you don't decide who they are. So judge away, but be careful what you do with your decisions. Don't write people off as a matter of course. Offer them a silent chance at redemption if you can. Put yourself in their shoes and treat them like you would want to be treated. In the long run, you will benefit. They will benefit, and we will be one step closer to a better world.
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This Week's Bookmarks - Nazis in Paris, Fiction Disclaimer, Ancient Dinners, Apple Award Nominees, Microwave Tips, Colosseum Facts, The Kakistocracy

Mystery uncovered of photographer and forbidden photos of Nazi-occupied France : NPR
The bizarre true story behind the “this is a work of fiction” disclaimer.
What the Mesopotamians had for dinner
Apple reveals 45 app and game finalists for the 2024 App Store Awards - Apple
7 Tips From Our Microwave Expert | Reviews by Wirecutter
Everyone but You Sucks, and I Hate Them

One of the least fun parts of having bipolar disorder is unexplainable irritability. Sometimes there are a few identifiable causes, but I know that on better days, they would not bother me. Today I woke up to find that a carefully curated collection of newsletters and online subscriptions was somehow decimated by technical snafus beyond my understanding. As I went through my habitual morning reading on my favorite websites, I could tell it was going to be one of those days.
The people of Reddit are engaged in the usual paranoia and security theater they indulge in regularly over app privacy policies. Two of the most hated apps by the little uninformed Russian trolls over there happen to be two I like just fine, Bartender and Clean My Mac. Someone called me disrespectful for not agreeing with them.
Bluesky is full of people taking sides in the PC vs, Mac wars like we are all living in 2001 again. It seems like the only people not participating are the Linux people who could solve all our problems if we would just install Arch/Mint/Ubuntu/Gnome etc.
On top of the technology drama, I also had to leave home, not something I always enjoy, accompanying Wonder Woman to the supermarket. To top it all off, instead of feeling grateful for a paid five-day break from work, I'm mad because I have to go back tomorrow.
I needed some advice, so I did some research.
What to Do When You’re Super Cranky and Hate Everyone | SELF
5 Scientific Reasons (and Solutions) for Your Crankiness
How to Be Grumpy: A Guide to Managing Grumpiness Well
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Language Tool - Free is Good, Paid is Better, but Expensive
Mac apps have had rudimentary built-in grammar checkers for a
while. Grammarly was the first
well-know commercial product to elevate the capabilities of that tool
genre, becoming extremely popular with students in particular. Lately,
LanguageTool has surged in
popularity. It is integrated into many well-known writing apps across
multiple platforms, including macOS and iOS.
Professionally, I am tasked with composing Confluence (knowledge base) documents for Jira, the ticketing system my job uses. Personally, I maintain three blogs as a non-monetized blogs as a hobby. I write a lot as a result. I have been using the free version of LanguageTool for a couple of months. It does a better job than the native spell checkers I previously used, and it helps with things like missing commas and omitted words. I took advantage of a Black Friday sale to sign up for a year on the Pro Plan. As a result, the app now has a much larger range of tools for me to use.
LanguageTool has a plugin for Safari, Firefox and Chromium browsers. It has a tool specifically built for Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Apple's Pages and LibreOffice. For email users, it works with Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird and Gmail. It even has a plugin for Obsidian, where I do most of my writing. On a Mac, it is also optimized for uses in other apps like Messages and Notes. There is a native editor app for Mac users.
Language Tools's capabilities are sizable.
-
Grammar
- Word order
- Verb tenses
- Subject/verb agreement
- Commas and in-depth punctuation
-
Style
- Repetition
- Over-used words and phrases
- Wordiness
- Foreign terms
-
Semantics
- Lack of clarity
- Word confusion
- Double negatives
-
Format and Typography
- Consistency for numbers and letters
- Spacing
- Time and date formats
-
Spelling
- Misspelled names and acronyms
- Casing errors
- Easy to import your Mac's personal dictionary
LanguageTool works not just with English, but with many other languages as well. It provides detailed stats on what it has done to aid you in writing. You can use a limited feature set or turn on what it calls "picky mode" for more frequent suggestions to strengthen your writing. It does not duplicate what macOS and ChatGPT offer in so far as it does not change the tone of your writing, but it will paraphrase sentences for you.
I am pleased so far with the suggestions I receive from LanguageTool. It definitely makes what I write more polished. It is not a cheap tool. Without the Black Friday discount, it is $5.83 a month, or $70 a year. Casual users can get plenty of benefits from the free plan, while students or more serious writers can benefit from deciding to go pro.
On Collecting Quotes

In an early morning fog, I posted this to the wrong blog today. I am reposting it here for the people who follow Linkage via RSS so they will have today's links.
More than a decade ago, a discovered a fun little app called Quotebook the app was deprecated within a couple of years of my discovery. By some miracle, it has continued to work. I have transferred from phone to phone and continued to use it for its intended purpose, collecting quotes from news stories, books and memes. As a backup, I also use individual text files named after the speaker/writer. Once that folder contained over 500 individuals. I created a GitHub repository to make it easy to share with others. Available as a ZIP archive or as single files you can find it here.
I prefer finding my quotes organically rather than harvesting tons of them at a time, but I will occasionally go looking for a quote on a specific topic. A good place to do that is here -
If you use IFTTT, you can get quotes emailed to you daily. I've been doing it for years. The day's choice goes out shortly after midnight, so it's always waiting for me when I wake up. You can get the same service with a free account.
Email me a famous quote every day - IFTTT
There are a few other quotes collecting apps available for iOS and Mac. I've tried them all.
The Old Technology Debate

I don't want to stir up any trouble. I really don't. I am here to be as helpful as possible for people who are trying to make purchasing decisions about the technology they are going to acquire during this holiday season. Not only that, but I was perusing social media during lunch and lo and behold, I saw the decades old debate about the suitability of Apple computers and computers running Windows, raging on the same as ever. I thought folks were over this, but evidently, they are not.
I started using personal computers in 1993. My first computer was an IBM 486 with Windows 3.1 installed. Over the next six years, I went from a novice to someone working in the support industry. The first time I received a call from a person who owned a Macintosh computer and wanted my assistance, I was incredulous. I couldn't believe that someone spent their money on something so expensive and so incompatible with everything with which I was familiar. In 2000, I was hired by a local school system, issued an Apple laptop, and immediately put to work servicing thousands of Apple computers across 21 schools. Within six months, my ability to configure and maintain Macs surpassed what I had learned in six years as a Windows user. Because I had to support both platforms, my knowledge of Windows and how to maintain it has never faltered. Although I haven't purchased a Windows machine for personal use in over a quarter of a century, I have been issued a few at work and touched literally thousands of them in my job.
For a while, purchasing a Mac was a considerable investment when compared to obtaining an entry-level PC. I will admit to buying inexpensive Dell laptops for my daughters when they were in college. My mother, on the other hand, who is more financially secure, is the one person I recommended buying a Mac. The Dell PC she previously had during the early part of the 21st century was repeatedly infected with different forms of malware and hard for her to maintain. Since she entered the Apple ecosystem with an iPhone, an iMac, and an iPad, she's had very little problems, and like many users, has actually moved away from a desktop machine to using only handheld devices. Some tech snobs think that Apple locks you into their ecosystem by tying the devices together, but I can assure you that most regular people appreciate rather than resent that feature.
These days, you can get an entry-level MacBook Air or a Mac Mini for under a thousand dollars, and the days of them being prohibitively expensive are over. Most people find that an entry-level PC purchased at Best Buy or Walmart will disintegrate within three or four years, whereas most Macs last up to a decade before they need to be replaced. Sometimes people that have never used anything but Windows will accuse Max of not being user-friendly, but the problem there lies with the user and not with the device. For 20 years, I watched five-year-old kindergarteners sit down at iMacs in a computer lab and begin to do things immediately. One little known fact is that low-end computers purchased in big box stores do not have the same components that other computers made by the same manufacturer enjoy. Period. There is definitely a trend towards awarding parts contracts to the lowest bidders, and certainly not to the ones who provide the most quality outside the gaming machines that some PC users purchase. Apple computers, on the other hand, enjoy the same quality components regardless of where they are sold.
There are still people who believe that Macs are only good for graphic designers and creators. These same people believe that you must purchase a Windows machine to get real work done. I have news for them. I work at a small private university in the IT department. My job consists primarily of supporting Windows users and maintaining the computers on the university network. I use various Microsoft tools to do this. All of my IT related work is done on an iMac. If I need to use Windows, I simply log in via a virtual machine on the network to get access to the tools I need. The big graphics companies like Adobe have long made versions of their software for both Mac and PCs. Most of the time, outside specialized enterprise applications, users can get their work done regardless of the platform that they are on. Our university requires every student to purchase a computer, but we do not specify whether they must buy a Microsoft product or an Apple product.
I am long past considering the type of computer one uses as criteria for evaluating their worthiness as a human being. It's just a machine. People who are fighting religious wars over computing platforms need to get a life. They are stuck in another decade. Having said that, I don't see a compelling reason to use Windows outside the specialty enterprise applications I mentioned earlier or just because one is familiar with the platform. I think a legitimate argument can be made for the superiority of Apple's operating systems and the apps that run on them by most knowledgeable people.
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On Collecting Quotes

More than a decade ago, a discovered a fun little app called Quotebook the app was deprecated within a couple of years of my discovery. By some miracle, it has continued to work. I have transferred from phone to phone and continued to use it for its intended purpose, collecting quotes from news stories, books and memes. As a backup, I also use individual text files named after the speaker/writer. Once that folder contained over 500 individuals. I created a GitHub repository to make it easy to share with others. Available as a ZIP archive or as single files you can find it here.
I prefer finding my quotes organically rather than harvesting tons of them at a time, but I will occasionally go looking for a quote on a specific topic. A good place to do that is here -
If you use IFTTT, you can get quotes emailed to you daily. I've been doing it for years. The day's choice goes out shortly after midnight, so it's always waiting for me when I wake up. You can get the same service with a free account.
Email me a famous quote every day - IFTTT
There are a few other quotes collecting apps available for iOS and Mac. I've tried them all.
Folder Tidy - On Demand Fast Power
Folder
Tidy by Tunabelly Software is a tool anyone can use to perform quick
sorts on any giant directories of files that seem overwhelming to tackle
manually. It has built in sorting rules for 19 different types of files,
including folders. These rules can be toggled on or off, but you cannot
edit them. In addition, you can make your own very granular rules. The
example they give is representative of the power of the app. "Move all
files with the extension “DOCX” that contain the word “invoice” and were
last modified in the past year to a folder labeled “Invoices."
What's remarkable is the speed at which Folder Tidy operates. It uses macOS technology called Grand Central Dispatch to use all available cores to accomplish the tasks you assign it. In my case, it took about a second to sort and move directories with hundreds of different media files to subfolders on a different drive. I had to do some troubleshooting after it failed to move all the files on the first try. It turns out that my Spotlight database needed to be rebuilt, a problem I've had before which also affects some search utilities, like Houdah Spot, that rely on it.
Folder Tidy is not a replacement for Hazel. While it does what it sets out to do quickly and well, it is a file sorting utility that doesn't have the depth of actions that Hazel does. If you already own Hazel, there is no reason to add Folder Tidy. One other important thing to know is that Folder Tidy is a manual app. It doesn't watch folders and run action on the enclosed items automatically.
I paid $2.49 for the app on Black Friday. It is ordinarily $9.99.
Are There Ethics to Blogging?

When I began to publish my writing online a year ago, I had no idea whether I would make it a habit or whether people would read anything I wrote. I hoped they would, but I had very little idea however all of this works. Blogging challenges were a mystery to me. My knowledge about how the whole community of personal bloggers from various platforms coalesces within social media circles was scant. The more I wrote and the more consistently I shared, the more learned about the unwritten expectations I would begin to place on myself. I also saw the constraints other people operated under, by choice, and how they differed from mine. Instinctively, I understood that being true to myself was the most important rule to follow. The other unwritten rules of blogging are just things I intuited along the way.
To my delight, I learned that writing my own version of someone else's idea is totally fine, as long as I give them a shout-out for the inspiration. Having someone do the reverse for me is high praise. Any time I've written something and then been able to read someone else's experiences in the same set of circumstances, it's been enjoyable. I end up feeling a particular closeness to the writer. I like it best when there are other significant differences in our lives, so I can see that my feelings of being unique aren't particularly valid. People tend to be more alike than they are different, in my experience. I wrote a post on what it was like to attend 13 schools over a 12-year period, only to read accounts from an English-Canadian woman a couple of years older than me who had done something similar. I also discovered a fellow who lives a continent away who is similar to me in many other ways besides our schooling history. Taking inspiration from others writing is a way of relating in a more deep and connected way than social media could ever offer.
Another ethical issue I and others have to deal with is the prevalence of AI writing tools and easily accessible they are. Things like grammar and spell checkers have been around for decades, but tools that can create an entire post from a mere prompt are new. I don't see myself letting some company's plagiarism machine create something that I would stick my name to. I don't have a problem having my spelling, grammar and punctuation checked by a computer because I'm used to that. Using a service that significantly changes my words, the tone and the structure just seems dishonest. There is a place for that in business, that being a cold and heartless environment. Blogging should have a soul. It should have a heart, and it should have an ethical code that the text you put under your byline is real and created by a human.
On the honesty scale, I'd say I come in around 90% to 95% honest. Sometimes one has to stretch the truth a bit to protect the innocent or make a story worth telling. My style of writing is autobiographical. There are times when I just can't remember the exact order of events, where I was living or who I was married to (just kidding). I do the best I can. I aim to be entertaining and interesting, not to please a professional fact-checker. Of course, there are some things about which I always try to be scrupulously honest. When I write about sobriety and recovery, you can take it to the bank. If I convey a particularly funny story about something that happened while I was in the army, there may be a detail or two where I take a literary license. Most of military life is dull and boring, so if something sounds interesting, it's probably just in the way I'm writing it.
I also tend to stick to just the facts when I write tech related posts. I want nothing more than to help someone find a real solution to a software issue. I'd feel horrible if I misled them about an app's suitability for a task, or if I wasn't diligent about pointing out a show stopping flaw. To the regular people in the world, a detailed explanation of menus, buttons, submenus and other user interface trivia is pure textual sleeping pills. For my fellow nerds and software geeks, it's vital information.
At some point, my goal is to have more time to write more polished and detailed work, to spend more time fine-tuning what I put out there for folks to read. I want to work through more than one draft, like what I envision a real writer does, Meanwhile, I will continue to be a happy hack making stuff that's good enough to share even if it won't win any rewards.
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Black Friday - Alternatives to Shopping

Any shopping I do on Black Friday will be of the online variety. There aren't enough bargains in the world to get me into a store with crazed bargain hunters today. I've seen the videos of shoppers being trampled so someone could save $50 on a big screen T. I plan to spend the day in the company ot my kids, grandkids and my Mom. We will hang out, telling stories and snacking. Our one trip away from home is a planned excursion for lunch to get some pho from the very appropriately named Vietnamese Restaurant. That's its name. The even funnier part is that all the people who work there are Korean.
Black Friday Alternatives: Things To Do Instead of Shopping - Parade
What To Do On Black Friday Instead Of Shopping
12 Things To Do On Black Friday Besides Shopping - It's My Favorite Day
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Black Friday Software Sales
It's time for all the AppAddicts out there to load up during the
yearly bargain day called Black Friday. The sites listed below have some
repetition, but take a quick look through all of them. Some contain
software for specialty roles, like devs, creators and designers.
So far this year, I've purchased:
Sales
- Rare Deals and Discounts on Software, Apps & SaaS
- Black Friday - Indie Goodies
- Black Friday WordPress Deals 2024 - wpbfdeals
- Awesome-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday: Awesome deals on Black Friday: Apps, SaaS, Books, Courses, etc.
- Best Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024 Deals for Developers & Designers
- SaaS Black Friday 2024
- Awesome-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-deals: 🟢 2024 Deals Live - Black Friday & Cyber Monday, Christmas & Holidays Deals for Developers, Techies, & Entrepreneurs,
- Black-Friday-Deals: Black Friday Deals for macOS / iOS Software & Books
- Indie App Sales!
- Discover Launch Deals on Indie Products
- DealHunt - Free Curated Deals with Savings up to 80%
- Black Friday Times, unmissable deals on software, services and more.
- Creator Black Friday Deals
Thanksgiving 2024

This year's Thanksgiving has a special flavor. My son, who lives far away in Austin, Texas, is here for a visit. I still live in the house where he grew up, and he enjoys these nostalgic returns. After we got home from the airport yesterday, he went for a run. He came home to report that he'd passed the homes of old friends, the middle school he attended, and various spots where he's committed various teenage sins in his wayward youth.
A little later, we went to the train station to pick up his daughter, our granddaughter, who was traveling to meet us from Virginia, where she attends school. We all went out for a sushi feast before coming home to hang out, telling stories, and making each other laugh.
I get up early, and as I sit here writing, I have that wonderful protective parental feeling that reminds me of my younger days when I'd wait for the kids to get up so I could make them breakfast and start the day. Later on, we will all be traveling across town to attend the annual family gathering at the remnants of my uncle's farm, where I lived during my high school years. My daughter and two of our other grandchildren will be there, along with other relatives ranging in age from nearly 80 down to a six-year-old.
Luckily, no one will talk politics in mixed company. If the coast is clear, the progressive wing of the family may console each other under our breaths, but no one will be wearing a MAGA hat or thanking the Good Lord for the election of Donald Trump. We will be asked to give reports on anyone who is missing. One of the best parts of these rare family conclaves is the chance to catch up on family news.
Wonder Woman is sitting across from me, already beginning our holiday shopping. With five children and 13 grandchildren, she has a lot of gifts to buy. I send her ideas and give her feedback, but all the real work, including wrapping the gifts when they get here, falls to her. My Black Friday shopping is relegated to taking advantage of software sales, a relatively selfish pursuit that I thoroughly enjoy. I probably won't be getting many new apps this year because, quite frankly, I have so many already that it's hard to even find things on sale that I don't already have installed!
I make a gratitude list every day as part of my journaling practice. It helps me stay in tune with how fortunate I am in so many ways. Since last Thanksgiving, a lot has happened that has given me new reasons to be thankful. After a long pause, I started blogging again, giving myself a creative outlet that is enjoyable and therapeutic. I've enjoyed a marked resurgence in my interest in technology and married that to my writing to produce content that's been viewed over 400,000 times by people all around the world.
If you are reading this, know that I appreciate you. Thanks for being interested in my world. Feel free to leave a comment or to reach out on social media. Have a happy Thanksgiving, whether you live in the US or not. Let's make a better world in the year ahead.
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Weird Thanksgiving Traditions

Here in the United States we traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November to celebrate the supposed feast celebrated by New England Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621. President Lincoln created the holiday in 1863 in the midst of the American Civil War.
My family's traditions are pretty normal. Wonder Woman and I alternate each year between her family and mine. Both families have all the expected Thanksgiving foods, turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce and various vegetables and deserts. No one person has to cook it all. We do it potluck style, where everyone attending brings a dish or two. The only slightly out of the ordinary offering is the occasional bushel of oysters we may have on hand, since we all live relatively close to the Atlantic coast.
Doing a little research, I discovered there are some definitely strange customs followed by different people in the US. Here are a few for you to peruse.
Weird Thanksgiving Traditions: Turduckens, Cap'n Crunch Stuffing & More
These Are The Weirdest Thanksgiving Traditions Ever
These Unusual Thanksgiving Traditions Are Common in the U.S. - Immihelp
What’s your “unusual” Thanksgiving tradition? : r/thanksgiving
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MacWhisper - Transcription Powerhouse
I made my first purchase of the 2024 Black Friday season by
purchasing the transcription app, MacWhisper by
indy developer Jordi Bruin for 40% off of the usual price of €49.99.
This app uses OpenAI's Whisper technology to transcribe all types of
audio files with quickness and accuracy into text.
It requires macOS 14 or higher and works best on Apple Silicon, although it is functional on Intel processors. You can use any type of input device, including your Mac's built-in microphone. MacWhisper can, if you choose, replace the built-in dictation on your computer. Transcription is done on your device, not on a remote computer. The default output is a .whisper file containing the original audio and the transcribed text, however it has numerous export choices:
- SRT and VTT subtitles
- CSV
- DOTE
- DOCX
- Markdown
- HTML
The transcription speed is remarkable, happening up to 30X over real time using metal and GPU technology. Transcripts may be easily searched. Filler words (um, ah, etc.) are automatically removed. You can edit the transcripts to correct spelling of names or other words.
With the Pro version of the program, I get batch transcriptions of multiple files. I can transcribe YouTube video and use my OpenAI key to take advantage of Cloud Transcription and ChatGPT integration. I can take advantage of translation services to convert text into other languages. It also adds a menu bar interface for global transcription and the ability to paste text into other apps.
Students, non-profits and journalists always get 50% off the price by contacting the developer. There is a free version of the app that lacks the AI integration of the Pro version. It is available on Gumroad.
AMA - Balancing Act

AMA - Finding comfort in the familiar things in life and having new adventures - which way do you lean?
Growing up as I did, where my family moved frequently and I was always changing schools, left me with a craving for stability and, well, sameness as an adult. I get a good deal of comfort out of living in the same house for decades now. I was glad to keep the same job in the same building for 20 years before retiring. On the other hand, traveling and seeing new things is a special treat. My favorite part of my months-long honeymoon was sleeping in a different place every night. I like both things.
In my job, most people are very unenthusiastic about having their computer updated, or god forbid, being issued a new one. When it comes to technology, the average person definitely prefers the familiar and comfortable over anything else. Not me. I'm always ready for new features, bug fixes, and extra security. Of course, since it's my profession, I'm more confident that I can fix any problems that pop up. Most of my career has been spent in education, where you would think people would be all about learning something new and expanding their horizons. You would be wrong if you thought that. Our ongoing controversy at work is around asking users to change the wireless network they use. That's it. Just select a different one from the list of what is available, type in your user name and password, and move on. Do I need to tell you how many meetings and conversations have already happened around this?
Lots of decisions come down to something familiar vs. something new. Take going out to eat, for instance. Wonder Woman and I have a handful of tried-and-true locally owned restaurants which we frequent. When I see a new place featured in the newspaper, I immediately think of checking it out if it looks like something we'd fancy. We like international cuisine and we need gluten-free options. Yet, when it's the end of a long work day and we've decided that cooking is too much of a hassle, we almost always head to one of the places where we've been 100 times before. It's not called comfort food for nothing.
I drive a 2005 Toyota Camry. It is a twenty-year-old hand-me-down from my mother, who literally drove it to church on Sundays. It has well over 200,000 miles. The paint is stained from being parked under an oak tree, and there are various scrapes and dents on every side of it. I've put exactly zero thought into getting a replacement for it. I haven't had a car payment since the Bush administration, and that thought horrifies me. I only drive it a couple of times a week to work and back anyway. Wonder Woman has a new Subaru Outback with all the bells and whistles, Apple Car Play, heated steering wheel, automatically adjusting mirrors and seats, a backup camera, the whole deal. I love to drive it and do so every chance I get. It is indeed a balancing act.
There are a few areas where I lean one way or another. I'm not much on rewatching movies or TV shows if I have already seen them, but I will re-read a book without hesitation. On my computer, I've used some of the same apps for many, many years, such as PathFinder (20 years), Evernote(15 years), and Launchbar(17 years) - all of which I ditched last year for replacements that I am now quite happy with. For other things, like email, I'm still using the same thing, the Gmail web interface that I have used since 2005.
They say that without newness, memories don't get created, and life just sort of blends into a big blob. I believe that, so I do seek out new adventures. But I also relish in the comfort of the familiar. I expect most people are the same in that regard.
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Best Thanksgiving prayer ever by Ricky Bobby “Dear Lord Baby Jesus, or as our brothers in the South call you: ‘Hay-suz’. We thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Dominos, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family: my two beautiful, beautiful, handsome striking sons, Walker: Texas Ranger, or TR as we call him. And, of course, my red hot smokin' wife Carley, who is a stone cold fox.”
The Fascinating History of Swearing in Movies

Left to my own devices, my language is quite profane. I temper myself in public and on the Internet, mostly because my Mom reads my blogs and I care about offending her. But, when I am working on a troublesome computer or dealing with carrying my groceries across a rainy parking lot, swearing is in order. It's all kind of silly of course, deciding that one sound is OK but another sound is bad. I know a certain Kindergarten aged boy whose take home behavior chart recently had a big red X on it and a notation that he "Said the F Word!!" He probably won't do that again, not worth it I'm sure.
As for movies, well society seems to have moved from not letting Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sleep in the same bed to an anything goes situation. In the first season of The Wire on HBO (AKA, the greatest TV show ever made), there is a scene that is just shy of four minutes long during which the F-Bomb is dropped 38 times by two actors. What a great play on words!
One fact I learned while looking for links for this post - the director of Gone with the Wind paid a fine equivalent to $100,000 today just so Clark Gable could say, "Frankly me dear, I don't give a damn." That is a commitment to art right there!
The First Onscreen Curse Word Was in This Classic Movie
Well, I swear: A brief f---ing history of profanity in the movies
The top 10 movies with the most swear words
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Clotski - A Clever Tool for Your Image Management Workflow
Clotski is a 99 cent menu bar app available in the
Mac App Store. Its simple menu lets you designate watched folders
where you keep images accessed as part of your workflow, for instance
screenshots and downloads. You can view thumbnails of the images, the
size is customizable and get info on them which includes name, size,
dimensions, creation date, tag, caption and modification date. Tags and
captions can be added from with Clotski. The information presented can
be customized, and other metadata can be added if you wish. You can open
the image with your default app or choose from other compatible apps
from an "open with" menu. When viewing the list of images in a folder
you can choose a list, grid or gallery view, and you can choose the sort
order based on date or file size in ascending or descending order.
One feature that is especially helpful is Clotski's ability to automatically download any images you copy to the clipboard into a folder you designate. You can set your own naming convention, as well as choosing to save them in either jpg or png formats.
For keyboard warriors, Clotski can be summoned with a custom shortcut, and it can be navigated without the use of a mouse. For further organization, Clotski lets you create collections of photos along with tags and folders. Collections can be accessed from a drop-down menu within the program If desired, you can designate an automatic tag to be applied to images you add to newly collected images. You can use the tags just with Clotski, or you can sync them with the Finder.
While working with images in Clotski, you can copy or drag them into documents on which you are working. Clotski does not have any native editing functionality,
Don't Burn Bridges

Some of the best advice I ever received was an admonition against burning bridges. An old co-worker told me that when I was getting ready to leave a job at which I was unhappy. The immature side of me wanted to leave in a blaze of glory, letting everyone know what I thought of them and the place that employed them. Somehow I'd convinced myself that my opinion was important and that all those people needed my approval to be happy - none of which was actually true. You may have seen someone do exactly what I contemplated. It's always icky and transparent and never looks good.
Sometimes people start burning their bridges when they are getting ready to leave a group as a way of self-protection. They don't want the separation to hurt so they begin to withdraw and cut off relationships. That's understandable. But I try to avoid doing it as best I can. Sometimes in our lives a certain group dynamic only exists for a short while under a certain set of circumstances that can never be recaptured - political campaigns, social movements, even some educational opportunities are like that. Just because the magic of the moment is gone doesn't mean that the people involved in it are no longer valuable, not because of what they can do for you, but just because people and relationships have an intangible worth that we honor when we continue to respect them.
In the current political environment in the US, I am very much of the mind to avoid people who like and support the president-elect. Their values and mine are obviously tremendously different. At a fundamental level, I just don't understand what makes them tick, nor do I have a desire to. But, I'm not seeking out every conservative I know to let them know that Lou Plummer thinks they are a bad person. There are ways to avoid people without purposefully alienating them. This in no way means that I'll silently nod my head when someone begins to spout off about how wonderful DT is, it just means that I don't feel the need to tell anyone off preemptively.
When someone decides that ending a relationship with me on a negative note is the thing to do, it makes me wonder what they hope to gain. It doesn't happen very often, and usually when it does, it's part of a mass casualty event when a disgruntled co-worker exits, but occasionally it's personal. It reeks of immaturity and poor judgement. I do the best I can not to take it personally. Some people are just built that way, I suppose. In reality, telling someone off, getting the last word, and making a dramatic exit only kind of feel good and only in the moment. That action is usually followed by a big let down and moments of self-doubt.
It's like my Mama (and probably yours too) used to say. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything. It’s not trite. It's true in most contexts. Exceptions can be made for calling out injustice and bigotry.
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Notesnook is the Best New App I've Seen in a While
There are many, many notes apps available for Mac users, from simple plain text notebooks to complex PKM managers. I thought I was familiar with the main players, but I just discovered an app with which I was unfamiliar, and I am blown away by its features. The app is Notesnook, and it reminds me very much of Evernote before it was enshittified. It's a privacy lover's dream app with features that anyone can love:
- Notes importer
- Automatic 2FA
- End to end encryption
- Mac, web and iOS apps
- Web clipper
- Pro plan is 34% of what Evernote costs and $10 for educational users
Notesnook provides real time syncing for free and paid accounts. The free plan offers plain text exporting and the pro plan lets you export notes to other apps as PDF, Markdown or HTML, unlike Evernote which has a proprietary format. It has unlimited storage and offers unlimited notebooks and tags in the pro plan.
Other notable features include:
- Offline access
- Unlimited devices
- Images and attachments
- Wikilinks
- Three different 2FA options
- Shortcut integration
- RTF and Markdown formatting
- Tables
- Callouts
- Reminders
- Encrypted backups
- Widgets
- Shares extensions
- Mobile web clipper
I will continue to use Obsidian for journaling and as an automated life record, but I'm moving my work notes, serial numbers, financial info and other reference material over to Notesnook.
To All the Ones I've Loved Before

The social media landscape is in flux these days. Twitter is having it's second mass exodus. The first happened when Elon Musk purchased the network in 2022. The most recent is a result of the 2024 US election. The primary beneficiary appears to be Bluesky. Mark Zuckerberg is being mocked for rapidly making changes to Meta's Threads to copy the things people like about other networks. Even Instagram is now allowing users to reset the algorithm so they can see more from people they follow and less of what Meta wants them to see.
Over the years there have been many social networks come and go. They promise to be the next big thing but they end up falling to the wayside when they end up not being able to compete with the behemoths. Let's hope the underdogs make it this time. I'm heavily invested in Mastodon and I am beginning to also spend time on Bluesky. I want them to last.
Here are a few of the late, great attempts to catch on that tried and failed or were just superseded.
What Happened to Myspace? The Fall of the Social Giant | Enterprise Tech News EM360
The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams - Waxy.org
Looking Back on Ping, Apple’s Failed Social Media Platform – iDrop News
Why Google+ Failed: 5 Lessons To Learn For Entrepreneurs
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Living a Life of Leisure

For years, I fantasized about not having to work and all the really fine things I would do when that magical time arrived. Then I retired and was at a loss. I read a lot of books and watched a bunch of movies, but it wasn't what I'd call really fun. Instead, it felt like I was just doing things to occupy my time. Eventually, I just went back to work. That was a pretty good solution, but not a perfect one. I still think about not having to work a lot, but I think the next time I get that opportunity, it will be different.
My fantasy retirement includes plenty of time for writing. Over the past year, I have made blogging a priority by default. It's something I enjoy. I do it every day, and I can just imagine having the time to fully develop ideas, do research, and polish my posts instead of the rush jobs I'm knocking out now. I'd like to have a nice office space at home with decent speakers to play music on, a really comfortable office chair with all my tried-and-true computer essentials right there at my fingertips. I don't currently use my office space because it's not where Wonder Woman hangs out. When we are at home together, we like to be together.
I'm so conscious of my limited free time right now that I don't like to use any of it to do anything except exactly what I want to do, with a few limits. I imagine myself with more time, being more willing to get a walking routine established with just the right mix of music playlists and downloaded podcasts like I did before my mobility was limited by knee surgery. I would not be forced into early pre-dawn walks like I am now.
Since I'm a couple of years older than Wonder Woman, part of my fantasy retirement will be spent at home while she is still working. I will be able to use my time to do some of the chores, like grocery shopping, that we now do together on the weekends. I'm not going too far out on a limb by claiming that I will be Molly Maid or anything because that ain't happening. The cleaning and lawn services we've had over the past few years have been among the best investments we've ever made, and I am way too used to them to think about moving backward and taking that stuff back over myself.
A few years ago, I looked into volunteering at a few places using the skill set I have in technology. I didn't find anything that was a good fit around my work hours, but I'd be willing to look into that once more while having a much more flexible schedule. We have one of the best military history museums in the world in my hometown, but it's mostly staffed by retired guys from the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces. My half-communist ass would probably not fit in well there, although you never know. I have some retired military friends who are just as radical as I imagine myself to be.
The primary benefit of not having to go to work is that I'll no longer have to do customer relations. I'm not the biggest people person. Although I don't have any problems with getting along with folks at work 99% of the time, that remaining 1% is a giant PIA that sucks the joy out of too many days. When I never have to crawl under another desk to plug something in for another adult, I will truly be a happy man.
For the time being, however, I'm going to keep punching the clock and just enjoy knowing that, if push comes to shove, I can make my way towards the exit. I'll enjoy the 99% of the job that isn't aggravating and be extra grateful that I get to ride back and forth (and eat lunch!) with the love of my life.
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The Top 25 Most Downloaded Mac Apps
I looked at the list
of the top 25 most downloaded apps as compiled by MacUpdater, who I
figure are as good a source as any and drew a few conclusions.
- VLC
- Pages
- AppCleaner
- Numbers
- Keynote
- iMovie
- The Unarchiver
- GarageBand
- Android File Transfer
- Speedtest
- Amphetamine
- Google Chrome
- Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
- Microsoft Teams
- Transmission
- HandBrake
- Firefox
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- ImageOptim
- OneDrive
- Bartender
- Magnet
- IINA
Only five of the apps in the list are paid apps. They are the big three in Microsoft Office, the menu bar manager, Bartender and the window manager, Magnet.
The vendor with the most apps on the list is surprisingly, Microsoft with five.
For it' market share to be as small as it, Firefox must have a higher proportion of Mac users employing it than PC users.
I would wager that VLC's popularity is due to its longevity and because of enterprise deployments. I know I have been putting it on images in the educational space for as long as I can remember. IINA seems more popular with more knowledgeable users,
Despite all the predictions made about Bartender's future after the botched handling of its sale, it is the most downloaded paid app in the ecosystem after Microsoft Office.
I have never been a big user of window management tools, and I had no idea Magnet was as popular as it is. It has 165,000 reviews in the App Store and a 4.9 rating.
I find it interesting that the top 25 apps did not include a single notes app, automation tool or clipboard manager. The only messaging app is Microsoft Teams, and I hesitate to say that is its primary function.
The presence of the six-year-old Android File Transfer app is mind-blowing. I suspect this indicates that the download figures are worldwide and include countries where Androids have huge market share.
The high ranking of App Cleaner is good for two reasons - it demonstrates that an app doesn't have to be updated constantly to be useful (last update was 2023-07-05). It also shows that lots of people believe in doing more than just dragging unwanted apps to the trash.
Superlatives

The Guinness Book of World Records became famous when I was a kid. I don't know how many times I read it fro cover to cover, but it was a lot. The things we curious types could read about back in the 70s were much more exciting than what books kids can get a hold of today. Aside from Guinness we had Ripley's Believe It or Not and multiple books on things like The Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot and more. These were shelved in the non-fiction section and honestly, as a kid I though they were going to be a much larger problem than they turned out to be.
Back to my original point - here are a few links about superlatives you may enjoy.
What movie has been viewed the most times?
Most Watched Movies Of All Time
What is the most watched television show of all time?
List of most watched television broadcasts in the United States - Wikipedia
What is the largest city in the world?
Top 10 Largest Cities in the World By Population 2024
What is the best selling book of all time?
The 24 Best-Selling Books of All Time - Mark Manson
Who is the richest person in the world?
The 10 Richest People in the World
What country has the longest life expectancy?
15 Countries With the Highest Life Expectancy - NY Requirements Blog
What is the most valuable car in the world?
What is the most expensive car in the world? - Autoblog
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I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.
This Week's Bookmarks - Email Ettiquette, Gladiator, da Vinci, TSA Tips, Quotes You Get Wrong, World History Encyclopedia, NG Pics of the Year, 25 Recipes That Changed America

Email etiquette: How to ask for things and get a response | Zapier
TSA’s New Facial Recognition PreCheck Becomes Go-To Timesaver for Veteran Travelers - WSJ
31 Famous Quotations You’ve Been Getting Wrong | Thought Catalog
2024: The Pictures of the Year
The 25 recipes that changed it all in American cooking, just in time for Thanksgiving.
Winners and Losers

Now I've been a-lookin' for a job, but it's hard to find.
There's winners and there's losers.
And I am south of the line.
Well, I'm tired of gettin' caught out on the losin' end.
But I talked to a man last night.
Gonna do a little favor for him.
Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen
Societies, including ours, have a habit of classifying people as winners and losers. In World War Two, Japanese soldiers committed mass suicide in battle after battle rather than surrendering or being beaten. I am reminded of a scene from the Will Ferrell comedy, Talladega Nights, after Ricky Bobby's sons brag of throwing their grandfather's war medals over a bridge and disrespecting a teacher, their dad exclaims "My boys are winners and winners get to do whatever they want." It's obvious that a lot of people share that sentiment.
Athletic contests by design have a winner and a loser at the end of the competition, but who is going to call Aaron Judge of the NY Yankees, a man whose salary is twice that of the entire Detroit Tigers, a loser? Are the athletes who go to the Olympic games and don't win a medal losers? Maybe they use that definition on their own minds as motivation, I don't know. I've only been around a couple of Olympians and I didn't ask them. I just know that from my own athletic career, I felt like a winner every time I gave the competition everything I had. What more could I do?
I've never been as opposed to anything in my life as I was against the Us war with Iraq. I opposed it with everything I had. When Obama, who unlike other prominent Democrats, had never supported the war, was elected, I felt like the antiwar movement had won. So did a lot of other folks. Most coalitions closed up shop as we waited for the troops to come home. Only it took years for the last soldier to leave Iraq (2011). When Obama left office in 2017, there were still American soldiers in Afghanistan for reasons no one could really explain.
There are people who turn just about everything into a competition to satisfy some need they have to be better than other people. I've known too many dentists and ad execs who, in their minds, turn into Tour de France riders on a Saturday morning bicycle ride at the club ride. Putting other people in danger and disrupting the flow of the entire undertaking is entirely acceptable in their minds if they can beat a bunch of school teachers and retirees to the next stop sign. Even on something as neutral as the Appalachian Trail, there were those people who bragged at camp sites about how many miles they'd covered and how fast they'd hiked. No one cared.
It's funny how these competitive types never try to win the competition on the job to close the most tickets or help the most customers. I wonder why.
After the recent election, a lot of people feel like they are on the winning side, but I have news for them. Unless they are in the 1%, they are going to come out of the next four years on the losing end. The educational system is going to suffer, and that hurts everyone. Unmitigated climate change will accelerate, and that hurts everyone. Pollution will increase. Government services will be deprecated. We will all live in a less functional country. All of that Trump-style winning is going to help one fat guy with a bad combover and too much makeup.
Winners are happy people. Winners are those amongst us who live in peace. They don't have the biggest houses or the nicest cars. What they have is appreciation for what they've got and an absence of longing for what they don't. They enjoy what they enjoy without a need to beat someone else. I like winners like that.
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Using Supercharge
Although I use a lot of apps that have a menu bar interface, most
of them are hidden by Bartender. An app has to be super useful and be
something I use frequently to remain visible at all times. The latest
addition by Sindre Sorhus, Supercharge is an instant add. It has a great
many uses and has replaced other utilities that have narrower focus.
More tools are being added regularly, so if you have this app, make sure
to install updates as soon as they are released to get new features. I
won't cover them all, just the ones I use personally.
From the Menu Bar
The menu bar icon presents the following option in a drop-down:
- Hide all windows
- Show Desktop
- Quit All Apps
- Hide My Email (opens this buried item in System Settings)
- Private Relay opens this buried item in System Settings)
Tweaks
- Unminimize windows when app becomes active
- Dim icons of hidden apps in the dock
- Create new text file with Option+N
- Open new files after naming
- Auto-adjust column widths in Finder
- Quit an app when closing its last Window (I don't usually like to mimic Micro$oft behavior, but I like this feature)
- When clicking on an active icon in the dock, hide app
- Add to Finder's context menu
- Copy path
- Copy file name
- Image dimensions
- Make symlink
- Move to...
- Copy to...
- Open in Terminal (for folders)
The ability to make those modifications in the Finder makes it much more powerful.
Shortcuts
- Toggle desktop widgets
- Open Passwords from menu bar
- Hide all windows
- Quit all apps (except menu bar apps)
- Show desktop
I was using the beta feature to close visible notifications which definitely had a beta feel to it, until I discovered that Better Touch Tool's implementation of this feature closes not just visible notifications, but all existing ones. I'm sure Sindre will get this working similarly in future releases.
Tools
I work on an MBA at home and an iMac for work. For apps that don't have iCloud sync, using the export and import settings tool has been extremely useful and has saved me a ton of time. It's also useful when I want to experiment with how an app is set up, allowing me to revert settings if I don't like what I get after changing things around.
You can get a fully functional copy of the app here. The only limitation is a reminder to buy the app every 12 hours, and no automatic updates. All data and settings carry over if you buy it.
I suggest you just go ahead and buy the app. If there was ever an Instabuy, this is it.
Diamonds Are a Racket

Contrary to what you may believe, the practice of giving diamond engagement rings isn't a long established tradition. It's a 20th century practice concocted by a single company, DeBeers, and promoted through an exhaustive marketing campaign. Today the image of men holding a little box up to a woman to propose marriage is instantly recognizable for what it is, a conditioned practice reeking of human rights abuses that puts young couples into debt for a rock, robbing them of an opportunity to use their resources to actually improve their quality of life. It needs to stop.
How DeBeers Invented the Engagement Ring
Blood diamond | Conflict, Trade & Human Rights | Britannica
The diamond industry is lying to you …
Diamond Trade Still Fuels Human Suffering
The Big Lie About Diamond Engagement Rings
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AMA - What Are Your Favorite Childhood Memories?

This might be rough for some. Not everyone had a happy childhood. Mine certainly had its rough spots, but for the most part, we had a lot of opportunities for pure joy too. So, in no particular order, here is a hit parade from the 70s.
Music - My mom and stepfather had a record player that stayed busy. I grew up listening to music that I still play today. We had all the Beatles albums. James Taylor got a lot of airtime. Especially for us kids, we got to listen to Pete Seeger sing Little Boxes and Abi-Yoyo. I even remember my stepfather playing a particular Arlo Guthrie record with Alice's Restaurant. My own dad was partial to Neil Diamond, so I get feelings for him whenever I hear one of the familiar songs.
Food - My mom didn't always cook breakfast, but more often than not, we didn't have to resort to cereal. Being in the South meant that bacon, eggs, and grits were a staple, although she had an actual waffle iron, so we got that sometimes. Pancakes and oatmeal were also on offer. When we did get cereal, there was always a controversy over whose turn it was to get the prize in the bottom of the box. I wasn't really fond of the "eat everything on your plate" rule that my stepfather imposed because Mom insisted on regularly serving English peas, which I despise to this day. I did learn how to enjoy asparagus though.
Travel - We weren't that well off, but we managed to have plenty of opportunities to visit parks and beaches when we happened to be living in the eastern part of the state. We moved a lot. When I grew up, I took my kids to some of the same places I'd been able to go to as a kid. One problem with travel was the size of the cars my parents had. Imagine five people in a Ford Pinto on a late-night trip up Interstate 95 from central NC to Washington, DC. That one was partially a business trip. My stepfather, a journalist, got to attend a press conference with other NC reporters to grill President Ford.
Holidays - Despite the lack of funds, we were never disappointed at Christmas. We got all the regular stuff kids get: bikes that lasted for years, baseball gloves, and always books about whatever we happened to be interested in at the time. We usually traveled to see family too. To my mother's everlasting credit, even though she and my dad got divorced around the time I started school, she has stayed in contact with his family to this very day. My dad lived out of state, but we still got to see our grandparents, our aunt, and our uncles.
Freedom - In the time before cell phones and excessive protectiveness, we had the license to roam. I was a hustler as a kid, always on the lookout to make a few bucks, and I rode my bike far and wide looking for soda bottles to sell back to the store. I walked the roads looking for aluminum cans. My mom willingly took me to the salvage yard to cash those in. We always had permission to go to the library when we lived someplace where it was close enough to get to. Some summers I practically lived there. Lots of times we lived in apartments with pools, and when we didn’t, we joined a co-op pool, which I didn't realize until I was an adult was whites only. I was born the year the civil rights act was signed, but there were still vestiges of segregation around if you looked.
TV and Movies - We had the same 19-inch TV my entire childhood. In the afternoons, we'd watch black and white re-runs of The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, and Gomer Pyle. Some of our favorite nighttime shows were Happy Days and * Laverne and Shirley.* One little town we lived in had a main street movie theater with one-dollar tickets. We could just about see the place from our house, and we got to go there whenever anything appropriate was playing. We still make fun of my sister for leaving Pippi Longstocking early because she got scared.
What was best about all of that was that it took place in an environment of my mother's love and commitment to give us the best childhood she could. She 100% succeeded, and I am so very grateful to this day.
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Mac Compression Utilities
When it comes to opening compressed files in just about any
format, the most downloaded utility is The
Unarchiver from MacPaw. There's not much you can throw at it that it
can't handle, including old files from StuffIt and DiskDoubler. It can
even extract files from some Windows .exe installers. The problem with
The UnArchiver is that it does decompression only. If you want to make
your own archives, you need another program. Natively, macOS can create
ZIP and DMG files but that's it.
BetterZip 5 from macitbetter is a much more full-featured app, although it isn't free. It's $24.95 for use on up to five Macs for personal users. It is also available on Setapp. Better Zip has some pretty cool superpowers:
- Quicklook extension for viewing files inside archives without opening them
- Edit archived files in an external application, and BetterZip can save the changes back and update your archive.
- Open and extract winmail.dat files.
- Open, extract, and modify ePub files.
- Extract images and sounds from PDFs
- AES-256 Encryption, password manager, password generator
- Finder Integration and share menu
- Filtering - only extract certain files from archives
- Integration with Alfred and Hazel
Keka is a perennial favorite of many Mac users. It has a free version on the developer's websiteand a $5 version on the Mac App Store. Keka has compression and decompression tools. Keka can divide large files into multiple parts that will automatically reassemble after decompression. You gain the ability to use 256-bit encryption. You can also take advantage of a drag and drop interface into the Keka main window, or by simply dropping files onto the Keka icon in the dock.
For those who want scripting and a CLI as well as a GUI, Peazip is probably the best bet. A free app, it also has the widest array of security features.
- Offers two-factor authentication
- Opens 200 types of compressed files in the GUI
- Multiple file management features: convert archives, search in archives, bookmarks, tabbed browsing,
- Portable - can be run from a USB or other external drive
- Open Source
- Cross platform (Linus, macOS Windows)
Some Finder alternatives offer compression and decompression, including:
What Do Kent State, Bloody Sunday and the Next Four Years Have in Common?

The last time Donald Trump was in power, he told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, that he wanted the military to "beat the fuck" out of racial justice protesters. "Just shoot them,"he told Milley. When Attorney General William Barr and Milley explained that the law didn't allow that, Trump responded, “Well, shoot them in the leg – or maybe the foot. But be hard on them!.”
Many states havepassed laws that provide immunity to drivers who kill protesters with their cars. Think about it. Republicans, and all these bills were passed by GOP-controlled legislatures, are essentially invoking the death penalty for the crime of blocking traffic. Following the alt-right/Nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, Heather Heyer was killed by a self-professed Nazi who drove his car into a crowd of protesters. If he'd done that in modern-day Iowa or Oklahoma, he would be free today instead of doing life in prison.
When Richard Nixon ran for president, he did so on a law and order platform. Under his watch, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia at Kent State University. Four were killed. Nine more were shot but survived. The Nixon administration blamed the students for the shootings. None of the National Guardsmen were ever convicted of any criminal charges.
Less than two years later, Irish Catholics marching for civil rights in Derry, Northern Ireland, were fired on by paratroopers from the British Army. It was January 30, 1972, a day known as Bloody Sunday. Fourteen unarmed men were killed. Twelve more were shot but survived. Many outright lies were presented by the British government justifying the killings. It took decades before British Prime Minister David Cameron finally absolved those killed of any guilt. By then, it was too late. Thirty years of violence between the IRA, loyalist paramilitary groups, and the British Army resulted in over 3,000 deaths.
If the Trump administration resorts to militarized responses to the legitimate grievances of the American people, we are going to have a lot of new articles on Wikipedia about infamous incidents with lists of the names of those killed by a government that will blame the innocent and the unarmed for their own deaths.
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Living in the Bible Belt

For a good part of my life, I tried to be religious and failed miserably. During my formative years, church was a social connection as well as a place for religious instruction. During elementary school, my Mom was married to a non-believer, so she didn't attend church, but my siblings and I went with a neighbor to a Southern Baptist church on the outskirts near the prison. My brother and I were active in the boys’ youth group, called RAs for Royal Adventurers. In the summer, we went to VBS (Vacation Bible School).
In high school, I lived with my aunt and uncle. They went to a Presbyterian Church, one of many in the area, reflecting the Scottish heritage in the part of North Carolina where we lived. One of my favorite parts of each week was the Sunday evening Youth Fellowship meetings. It was the one place where kids from the different high schools in the area hung out together. We had a church league softball team that was a lot of fun. Our yearly beach trip was something I looked forward to immensely. I got a lot of love there in spite of getting caught smoking weed by the youth minister. I wasn't a well-behaved kid, but I was still welcome.
As an adult, I have attended Baptist, Presbyterian, and Seventh-day Adventist churches. I've been baptized at least twice. I may have also been baptized as a baby since during the brief time my parents were married to each other, they attended the Methodist church, which practices infant baptism. All three of my children attended private, church-affiliated schools for part of their K-12 lives.
Both my sister and my father are ordained ministers in the United Methodist Church. It was a second career for both of them. In retirement, Dad no longer worships at a Methodist church because it has grown too liberal for him. My mother has done medical missionary work in Rwanda. She is a member of an Anglican church that is affiliated with the Rwandan version of that denomination. She was a member of an Episcopalian church for a long time, but when her congregation split after the ordination of Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop, she went with her husband and the other conservatives to form a new congregation. My sister has many of the same political beliefs that I hold, and she is one of the few people I feel comfortable talking to when it comes to issues of faith.
Despite all that churching, I ended up a non-believer. I tried as hard as I knew how to find a connection with a supernatural God, but I never felt anything, not ever. As a recovering alcoholic from the 12-Step tradition, which relies heavily on the concept of a "higher power," I had to do considerable mental gymnastics to finally get sober. I finally resolved to use my AA group as a power greater than myself. Collectively, that is 100% true, and it was only after I stopped fighting against what I felt was an inappropriate religious influence that I was able to stop drinking for good, or at least for the last 16 years.
Aside from the lack of an emotional connection with religion, my other reasons for the position I hold are much the same as many other non-believers. I can't reconcile things like the Holocaust and childhood leukemia with a loving and caring God. The historical reality of how the Bible became canon is more than a little sus to me as well. I really like quite a few parts of it anyway, especially The Sermon on the Mount, which is as good an outlook on a righteous life as I have seen anywhere. I am also disgusted to the very core of who I am as a person with right-wing-influenced Christianity. People who talk Jesus out of one side of their mouth and cut nutrition programs for the poor out of the other side are contemptible, and I want as little to do with them as possible. When I think of the average white conservative Christian, I think of the ways they advocate for things like discrimination against LGBT people, their support for the death penalty, and their attempts to force their beliefs into the political fabric of a country that was founded on religious freedom. I like Christians like Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King, Jr. I do not like Christians like James Dobson and Tony Perkins. I think they are evil people.
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MarkEdit - A Pure Markdown Editor for Free
Markdown documents are written in plain text and generally saved
with a .md file extension. Various apps like Obsidian and Bear use Markdown by default. There is a
whole ecosystem of tools around the easy-to-use language where you use
various keyboard elements to create styles that can be interpreted by
browsers and other apps. Markdown lets you add:
- Bold
- Italic
- Quotes
- Lists (numbered, bullets, and checklists)
- Links (to web pages and images)
- Code blocks
- Headers
- Tables
There are different flavors of Markdown, but the most commonly used one is referred to as GitHub-flavored Markdown. As a blogger, I prefer to write in Markdown to format my posts for the web. The free app, MarkEdit uses 100% pure GitHub Markdown. Out of the box. The interface is pretty bare bones, but you can customize the toolbar to use the various tools on selected text. MarkEdit permits the insertion of multiple carats, so you can highlight disconnected blocks of text. MarkEdit is intended to be a minimalist writing tool. It has a good feature set. There isn't any bloat. There are plenty of other editors that have preview, different flavors of Markdown and more. It's just a matter of taste and what your needs are.
The latest version incorporates Apple's writing tools, allowing you to use proofreading and AI rewriting tools to change your text. Although I am not personally a fan of AI-generated content, there probably isn’t any harm in letting it make a business email more professional if need be.
MarkEdit does not contain a viewer to show your text with the formatting enforced. I suggest Brett Terpstra's app Marked 2 if you're not going to be looking at your content in a browser.
Bluesky Resources, If You're Curious

I am by no means an expert on Bluesky. My account is coming up on a year old and I have about 1400 posts on the site, the majority of them from cross posting. Until the great migration happened, I didn't have much real involvement with people there. As someone with an interest in tech, I've stayed abreast of what's happening behind the scenes and out in public. As a compulsive note taker and data hoarder, I've collected some information in the forms of guides and articles that I am happy to share. I'll be adding more and you can bookmark this page to see what gets aded. Also, feel free to send me any links you have to share.
You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for the collection.
If you want to connect on Bluesky, I am amerpie.lol.
AMA - Do You Have Faith in the Future?

Brandon asked - "Do you have faith in the future of humanity? Why or why not?"
By nature, I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I do the best I can to live in the moment. The future will take care of itself, I figure. I do have my moments where I dare to contemplate what's going to happen. I don't always have a rosy view. Like a lot of people, the recent presidential election shook me to my core. The realization of a lot of my worst fears is already in motion as our new government takes shape. From a purely personal perspective, here in old white guy land, things are just grand. The future of Lou is pretty rosy, but I will be damned before I let that selfish perspective be the lens through which I view the world.
As bad as things look, there is one overriding truth. Throughout the history of mankind, things have always gotten better. Sometimes the pace has been excruciatingly slow. At other times, progress has been made at breathtaking speed. I look at things like HIV research. We've gone from an epidemic illness being a death sentence to it becoming just another treatable illness in one generation. We went from the first airplane to landing on the moon in a single lifetime. Mankind is badass like that.
When I talk to friends having a rough time, I like to remind them that every bad thing that has ever happened to them in the whole entire life hasn't killed them. Whatever they happen to be going through at the moment, whether it be a lost job, a divorce, or something else, isn't likely to kill them either. Sometimes in life, you lose battle after battle only to win the war. During the civil rights movement, the people of Birmingham had police dogs turned on them and were sprayed with fire hoses as police chief Bull Connor dealt violently with nonviolent protesters. John Lewis had his skull fractured for marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The very next year, the Civil Rights Act was passed. Bull Connor lost, and John Lewis won.
Life is a series of peaks and valleys. When we are down in the valley like we are right now, it's hard to remember what the mountain tops were like. It's a lot easier to be pessimistic than it is to be positive. People of faith have heaven to look forward to, but secular people just have their one wild and precious life. I'll not let anyone take away the things in this life that give it meaning. I will continue to be a loud and proud progressive. I will hold on to the values I have until I find a better alternative. There are plenty of people like me. The conservatives have won two majorities over a period of 32 years. Their current hold on power is temporary, and unless we move into a total dictatorship, and I realize there is a chance of that, we will have weapons of democracy to use.
The challenges we face are real. Climate change, competition for resources, rising authoritarianism, oppression of vulnerable minorities - all of these things are real. We will experience setbacks in combating them, but we will win in the end. We always do.
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Recents App for Mac - A Free Intelligent File Launcher
The Recent Items section of the Apple Menu lists your 10 most
recently opened documents. There are some apps that let you increase
that number, but not by much. At most, you'll have a couple of days work
to refer back to. The app, Recents, will trace you work back by
months in some cases.
Recents breaks your workflow down on a per-app basis and provides the most recently used documents for each one, even if the app itself doesn't have a recent files menu. For example, I use Rapidmg to open disk images. The program normally opens the disk image, moves the contents to my Applications folder, and then dismounts and closes without any intervention from me. There is no menu. Using Recents, I can see a list of the last 15 DMGs I've opened, and reopen them at will.
Recents works with a wide variety of apps and file types. In the admittedly confusing file structure we use at work, I often can't remember the exact path of saved documents, but I know the app I created it with. Using Recents, I can easily find and open what I am looking for in a centralized location. Some of the apps with which I use Recents are:
- Microsoft Office
- Console
- Preview
- PDF Expert
- VLC
- Obsidian (opens vaults, not documents)
- Motrix
The app has a light and dark mode and can be set to mimic your system preferences. Recents can be access three ways:
- From the dock
- From the menu bar
- Hidden and summoned from a hot key
Recents can be downloaded from the developers website. It is a free app.
Transgender Day of Remembrance

Transgender Day of Remembrance is marked every Nov. 20and began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a trans woman who was killed in Massachusetts. The day marks the end of Transgender Awareness Week, which is used to raise public knowledge about the transgender community and the issues they face
The first trans guy I ever met was an anti-war activist from North Carolina. It wasn't a big deal to me. At the time, all I wanted were allies against the Bush administration'd policies and Aiden was just such a person. That was almost 20 years ago. We are still friends on Facebook to this day, although I have not see him for years. I didn't get into activism until I was nearly 40 and I had no idea how things work on the left. We get criticized often for going off topic. People talk about Palestine at the wrong time or they bring up Trans rights in the wrong places. I here to tell you, Trans rights are human rights and there isn't a wrong time to be an advocate for human rights, especially these days. The Republicans can't get us cheaper eggs so they are keeping their hate filled agenda going by tapping into the anti-trans sentiment they have ginned up.
Even if you've never knowingly met a trans man or woman, you still have room in your life to be an ally and an advocate. Don't let people denigrate them in your presence and let others know how you feel about respecting human rights - all human rights. Make a donation to the Trevor project. Post something on social media. Write a letter to the editor about what a terrible person some trans-hating politician is. Speak up. Be visible. Do the right thing.
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) | GLAAD
Supporting the Transgender People in Your Life: A Guide to Being a Good Ally | A4TE
HRC | Be an Ally - Support Trans Equality
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Humor Me

Inspired by a post from Annie Mueller, I thought I'd write about humor today.
Making wisecracks is one of my primary forms of communication. Just about anything can be funny if you frame it the right way. It sometimes shocks people who don't know me that well, but anyone who has to suffer through working with me gets used to it rather quickly. I lean towards dry and acerbic humor because that's pretty much the way I perceive the world. There are an awful lot of absurd things about being alive, and pointing them out to people gives me purpose. I can't stand it when there is an obvious joke waiting to be made and yet no one will say anything because "inappropriate." No! Someone needs to get that laugh. It might as well be me.
I went through a stage when I downloaded routines of some of the most famous comics who have ever lived to listen to when I was spending a lot of time in my car for work. Being funny on demand didn't seem easy, but it didn't seem that hard either. I thought about writing some jokes and going to an open mic night at a comedy club, but I never followed through. For one thing, me and bars don't mix well, and I also might have been a little bit chicken. It was still fun listening to Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and even Bill Cosby. This was before he went to prison for being a predator.
I think Richard Pryor is probably the funniest human who ever lived. His humor is timeless because it's about the human condition. A lot of comedians do topical comedy, which is funny at the moment, but it doesn't age well. My daughter thought me and her mother were so weird because we went on and on about how funny the show In Living Color was. She finally found it on DVD and watched a few episodes. It was full of jokes about Barbara Bush and Mike Tyson and other people who just weren't part of her world. She was very disappointed and hasn't asked me for entertainment options in a very long time.
I try not to be think-skinned when listening to stand-up. I'm more than willing to grant artistic license to a performer, but there are still some lines that don't need to be crossed. I don't like anti-trans humor. If you were to substitute some other marginalized group for tans folks into some of those jokes, people would look at you like you were wearing a Klan robe. I get that not everyone "gets" the struggle of that community, but making jokes at their expense is getting old. Even otherwise perceptive people like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais fall into the not-funny category when it comes to that brand of humor.
I love using humor as a weapon when I don't have anything else to offer. Any time someone tries to defend the indefensible to me, I laugh at them. You want to defend Trump? You're funny because he's a clown, and you're one too if you're defending him. Not only that, but you want to tell me why the death penalty or cutting school lunch programs are good ideas? I'm going to laugh right in your face. How can you seriously feel that way and call yourself a human being? Maybe that's disrespectful. Ok, it is disrespectful, but I don't really care. Laughing at you is better than fighting with you, which I don't care to do.
Feel free to send me jokes.
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Two Free Apps for Mac OS Installation Ease
On most modern Macs, the later Intel builds and all Apple Silicon
models, you can boot into recovery mode, access disk utility and
download and install a new operating system. Unless you can't. Then you
have a problem. Or, maybe you are experimenting with Open
Core Legacy Patcher to install a later version of macOS on a device
that doesn't officially support it. In that case, you are going to need
a copy of an OS, preferably bootable, and some sort of media to copy
that OS installation onto. You can do the installation through other
methods, like target disk mode or various imaging applications too, but
they take some know how. The other thing you can use these files for is
when experimenting with virtual machines in something like Virtual Box,
UTM or VMWare Fusion.
Mist
To get a copy of the firmware and OS you need, I know of no easier method than using Mist, a free app available on GitHub. With Mist, you can get everything from the latest beta, all the way back to Mac OS X 7.5. You can get Intel or Apple Silicon installers, or the universal installers available for macOS Big Sur and later.
Balena Etcher
If you are planning to use an SD card or a USB drive, things work better when you flash the media than when you try to fiddle with partitions and permissions on your own from the command line. Luckily, there is an app for that. It is Balena Etcher, a free app with built-in safeguards to keep you from erasing the wrong drive. Balena Etcher will also create bootable media for Windows and various Linux builds too.
Some Advice on Not Drinking

I am not one of those priggish tee-totalers who thinks drinking is a sin and that no one should indulge in demon rum, not at all. In fact, coming from a 12-Step recovery tradition, I have no real opinion on drinking as an institution, but I've never looked down my nose at anyone who enjoys a cold beer, a glass of win or a mixed drink. I don't look down my nose at people who have a problem with booze either. Nobody volunteers to become an alcoholic. Alcohol just has a way of taking over the lives of a certain percentage of the population, usually ones who have family members with the same issue. There are certain genetic markers for addiction and whether it's an illness isn't really debatable anymore except by science denying morons - so about half of America.LOL.Sob.
I digress. My point is, if you have decided not to drink for a night or for the rest of your life, whatever, here are a few things I have learned. Number one - it's less of a big deal to other people than you think it is. When people who like to drink are kinda sorta thinking about stopping, they almost always cite the social pressure to drink as a reason why they can't. That's their inner little drunk devil talking to them. Nobody cares! They aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are.
When you are at a party or a family holiday celebration, get a non-alcoholic drink and hold on to that sucker for dear life. DO NOT PUT IT DOWN! If you're trying to camouflage your sobriety, put a twist and a swizzle stick in you club soda. Just don't let go of it. I've had a couple of occasions where I've failed to obey this rule and ended up with a horrifying mouth full my step-father's gin and my sister's wine. Not cool. I didn't relapse or anything, but it's not a good feeling. Once my sister-in-law spilled a glass of wine on me and I had two-hour drive home. I used Vick's Medicated Rub in my nostrils to kill the smell just like people at the morgue do to cover up the smell of decaying flesh.
You can also plan on arriving late and leaving early to any parties when you are trying to live that sober life. Drinking mocktails or alcohol free beer is an option for some but personally I never wanted the romance of booze without the booze. If you get a craving for alcohol, eating sweets is a well known way to make the craving subside. Trust me.
If you've decided you do have a problem and you want to quit for good, and brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you that for real problem drinkers, cutting back is not the answer. Abstinence is. Sorry, them's the facts. Anyway, if you want to quit, you can. You've never met anyone in your life who loves to drink as much as me and I haven't had one in about 16 years because of reasons. Lots of reasons.
My inbox is always open.
How to Stop Alcohol Cravings - Handling the Urges to Drink - Rethinking Drinking | NIAAA
How to Stop Drinking Alcohol | Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
How to Stop Drinking Alcohol, According to Experts - GoodRx
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The Stranger I Know

AMA - What's one of the hardest things you have ever done?
My Dad woke up this morning and didn't know what day it was. Panicked, he sent a text message to almost everyone in the family asking for help. At this point, that means my siblings and his. We are a close family and several of us sprang into action. His brother-in-law lives a couple of miles away and was the first to arrive. My aunt, a nurse with more than 40 years experience was there within the hour. They got him to the doctor and then the hospital where the doctors are running tests to rule out a stroke. His thinking seems to have cleared up since he sent the original text but he still couldn't figure out how to set an alarm on his phone. That kind of thing is starting to happen with more frequency.
Dad is the sole care-giver for my step-mother who has Alzheimers. She still know who he is, although most of the rest of us are becoming strangers to her. She still hugs me and tells me she loves me, but when she was recently asked by a doctor how many children my Dad has (four), she was unable to answer. Her and Dad were in a car accident last month and the next day she didn't understand why she felt so sore, unable to remember what happened. Even though he walks with a cane or a walker, Dad still cooks for her and takes her on the daily drive she insists on going on.
My Dad was the first person I knew to have a computer. It was one he purchased at Radio Shack in the 80s. His experience with them predates Windows. Like lots of old-timers, he likes to talk about how much he paid for a 10MB hard drive back in the day. He used spreadsheets in DOS and used to be a master at writing batch files. Recently, he asked me to come help him with some IT issues. He has having problems changing the ink in his printer and wanted to make sure some important documents were getting back up. He's also mentioned not being able to remember how to access his photos or music. I was glad to help but I could see that he is starting to get frustrated by having to remember the procedures for tasks he's done for so many years.
My Dad and I don't see eye to eye on many things, especially politics. I've never liked to verbally spar with him because emotions take over and I can't think straight. He has always been one of the most intellectually capable people that I know. A lifelong voracious reader, he's a walking encyclopedia about a great many things. Unfortunately, some of the facts he's assimilated in the last 15 years came from Fox News, an outlet not known for presenting both sides of an issue. We do best when we talk about computers or when he tells stories about my grandparents. There are a great many things he doesn't like because they differ from what he considers traditional. You've heard about the type of person who wishes life today was like the 1950s? That's him.
Although he is financially able to afford assisted living for himself and my step-mother, he has so far resisted doing much more than just looking into it. He says that he is willing to pay for in home care, but so far he hasn't made any moves to get that underway. Maybe today's events will spur him into action.
Every time I see him these days, I have to determine whether he's having a good day or bad day. He has a sensitive nature, so I have to be circumspect. I have done my best in adulthood to let go of resentments toward him with varying levels of success. It has not been easy and that's on me. I feel like he does the best he can. I might wish he were different, but he isn't. He is who he is, and my job is to accept that the best I can.
As you may be able to tell, I am not a big fan of the aging process for me or anyone else, not that I have anything but wishful thinking to combat the process. I don't like the effects it has on me and I don't like seeing the way it changes the people I love. Writing this is the outlet for feeling that way. Thanks for reading.
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Bluesky Apps for Mac Users
The social media platform, Bluesky, has been getting a lot of press lately as a mass migration from X has taken place over the past two weeks. Bluesky has added nearly five million new users. For any Mac users wanting more than the default web interface, there are a few tools available.
Deck Blue
To mimic the old Tweetdeck experience, Deck Blue is your best bet. Best run as a progressive web app through any browser that supports the feature, Deck Blue offers a customizable multi-column interface. You can set how often you want the page refreshed, and you can hide certain types of posts. For a minimum of $1 a month, you can have up to four feeds and use post scheduling.
Skeets
Skeets is an iPad app that also runs on Macs with Apple silicon. It has more features than any other Bluesky client. Some features require a subscription, $1.99 a month, $17.99 a year.
Features
• Hold reading position when
refreshing
• Edit posts
• Post notifications ($)
• Thread
Unroll ($)
• Bookmarks ($)
• Drafts ($)
• Push
Notifications filter ($)
• Trends in Search
• In-App
Translations
• VoiceOver-friendly
• iOS Shortcuts support
• Actionable Push Notifications
• Alt-Text Generator (for images
with text)
• Hide like/repost/comments numbers
• Async video
upload
• Search within user profiles
• Shorten user handles
• Low data mode
• Customize main app color ($)
Sky.app
Sky is a free app available on GitHub. It looks very much like the iOS app, but it does add keyboard shortcuts for those that rely on them.
Need Tech Support? Some Tips

I started working in IT support right after Windows 95 was released. I’ve worked in manufacturing health care, banking and insurance, but primarily in K-12 and higher education. In some way or another, I’ve always been involved in end-user support. Currently I have a relatively low stress job at a well-run private university where the relationship between the IT department and the faculty, staff and students is pretty good.
Almost every adult in 2024 has experienced technical difficulties that required them to call tech support, whether it’s the help desk at your job, your Internet service provider or the manufacturer of your cell phone. I’m not immune to this. I switched ISPs last year and my new setup didn’t work when I followed the directions. It was frustrating, but I wanted to solve the problem, so I called.
I promise you that if you follow the steps below, your technology problems will get solved faster and with better results than if you don’t. And, trust me, I’m sure you’ve dealt with some incompetent or mean or unfriendly tech support folks in the past. I get it. That’s out of your control. What is in your control is how you react. Don’t act aggrieved or victimized. Be solution oriented and things will work out better.
- Restart your computer. Seriously. This solves many, many problems. Do this even if you don’t think it will help.
- Answer all the questions you are asked truthfully. Don’t say you restarted you computer if you actually didn’t.
- Remember that the person on the other end of the phone almost always wants to solve your problem too. They are not the cause of your problem. Technology is complicated and finnicky and sometimes things don’t work. That’s the price we pay to live in the 21st century.
- Obey the Golden Rule. Talk to the person on the other end of the phone like you would want to be spoken to.
- If you are calling because you got an error message, know what the error message said and be able to relay that information to tech support. Don’t just say “I got an error
- Be prepared to tell tech support what you were doing when the problem occurred. (e.g., What program were you using? What other programs were open? Did the computer make any sounds?)
- If this is a reoccurring problem, how long has it been happening and what was your reason for not reporting it sooner? (Did you have a solution to the problem that no longer works?)
- Can you reproduce the issue or is it intermittent? If you can reproduce the issue, know what exact steps you took before the problem surfaced. (Keep in mind that intermittent problems are among the most difficult to resolve because of the difficulty in determining if the issue is fixed)
- What have you tried on you own to solve the problem? (Not that you have to solve your own issue, but it doesn’t hurt to Google it. It might be something simple that can save you a call.)
- Be familiar enough with the tools you use to know what operating system your computer uses and (especially if you are on a corporate network) what the name of your computer is.
- Do your best within your abilities to describe the issue. It’s not cute to use language like ‘thingy” or “doohickey”. If you don’t have the IT vocabulary to explain an issue, there’s nothing you can do about that. Just use plain language and you’ll be moving towards a solution.
- If you are having a problem with something online, try to know if your computer is wireless (bonus points if you know the name of the Wi-Fi network) or if it is connected to a network through a cable.
- Only call for help if you have the time to work through the problem. Don't call five minutes before a meeting or quitting time.
Look, I understand technology is frustrating. Trust me. I do. My whole professional life has been spent fixing things that aren’t working as expected. But don’t be angry at the person who is there to help you. There’s no need to tell them how many years you’ve been using a computer or what high-speed tech job your kid has. Just work together, get the problem solved and then you can get back to work.
For Mac users who want to try solving their own problems, here are some resources.
Mac troubleshooting. Get tips on how to fix mac problems
Mac Basic Startup Troubleshooting Steps - Apple Community
macOS Basics: Troubleshooting Common Problems
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Shareful - A Free App I Use Every Day
There are certain apps that really should be incorporated into the operating system. One of those is Shareful by Sindre Sorhus. The share menu on the Mac seems like an afterthought when compared to the comparable menu in iOS. Many developers fail to implement the feature in their apps, and Apple itself leaves it purposefully underpowered for some reason. Thankfully, Shareful exists with three supremely useful functions.
Copy
Copy the shared item to the clipboard and so you can quickly paste it into another app. This is my most frequent use case. I have a number of Apple shortcuts that have text output. I use Shareful to copy that output to use in other places. Without Shareful, I'd have to use the text to create a file, then open the file and copy from there. Another useful option is to use this app to copy a screenshot to the clipboard through the share menu.
Save As
Choose a directory to save the shared item to.
Open In
Open the shared item in any app. You can open the current Safari URL in a different browser. In Safari, click the share button, select "Open In…", and then select a browser. There is a Raycast extension that also does this if you are a Raycast user.
Frequent use cases:
- In Photos, use the “Open In” share service to open one or more photos directly in Photoshop.
- Quickly copy content from an app that doesn't normally support copying.
- In Safari, right-click an image, and use the “Open In” share service to open it directly in another app.
Shareful is available on the Mac App Store. If you do not have access to the App Store, you can download a version from the developer's website, although it is not updated as often.
The Stories We Tell

Life is full of little moments we love to recount later. Here's a small collection of some of my favorites.
Encouraged To Leave
I have been “encouraged to leave” both a library and a used book store — and I was totally innocent both times. I impishly asked a reference librarian if she knew another word for “thesaurus”. Next thing I know there’s a deputy sheriff at my elbow. I thought I was off the hook because I used to work with him, but no. Out the door I went. At the used book store, I was looking at a book on wine. This is before I quit drinking, although I was sober for the purpose of this story. I think. Anyway, I’m looking through the book and I start finding big, gorgeous marijuana leaves, dried and pressed between the pages. There were a dozen or more. Laughing, I approached the front desk to show them. They didn’t think it was as funny as I did, and...you guessed it. Out the door I went. I still like to read though. I’ve never been kicked off Amazon.
Everything You Need to Get on the Internet
Back in the days when people were just starting to get online, Walmart ran a special on 14.4 modems, complete with an AOL disk and a phone cord. On the box it said "Everything You Need to Get on the Internet". Someone bought one and called me (I did side jobs back then) to help them get it set up. When I showed up, they handed me the box and looked at me expectantly. I asked them where their computer was and they looked confused. They pointed at the box - "Everything you need to get on the Internet." They didn't own a computer.
Two Boxes of Junior Mints
I have three kids, two girls and a boy. For the most part, they got along well when they were living at home. Group dynamics being what they are, there were times when they would go to war along gender lines with the girls using their two to one advantage. My son is a gentle soul who's never done a mean thing in his life, but he would get so exasperated at his sisters that he'd contemplate extreme measures at times. Once they'd done something that drove him to a dark place and he issued one of the most famous threats in family history. Shaking with anger, he told his step-mom and I, "If the girls don't leave me alone, I'm going to buy two boxes of Junior Mints and I'm not giving them any!" That was it. That was the meanest thing he could think of.
Getting Used to Farm Life
Prior to the age of 14, I'd been a city kid all my life. Then I loved to my uncle's farm, where I lived throughout high school. When I first moved there, he also managed a commercial hog farm, and I rode with him daily to work. As we moved around from barn to barn, I did my best to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant. Since there were thousands of hogs around, this was a difficult task, and it slowed me down considerably, much to his consternation. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed me by the arm, bent over and scooped something off the ground and rubbed it on my hand. He said, "Now you've hot hog shit on you. Quit dancing around and keep up. Let's go to work." A few years later, I was out in the cow pasture at home with a wheelbarrow picking up dried cow chips by hand to use as garden fertilizer. He saw me and brought up the earlier incident, remarking on how far I'd come in my farming career.
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This Weeks Bookmarks - The Shipwreck Detective, Python Hunter, Best Inventions of 2024, Digital Literacy for Teens, Apple Stymies Cops, Influential Cookbooks, Five Villages to Visit

The Shipwreck Detective | The New Yorker
The 200 Best Inventions of 2024 TIME
For Teens Online, Conspiracy Theories Are Commonplace. Media Literacy Is Not. | EdSurge News
Apple Quietly Introduced iPhone Reboot Code Which is Locking Out Cops
The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years - The New York Times
Five Uncrowded Rural Vacation Ideas You Should Consider - Bloomberg
A Case of the Mondays for Forty Plus Years

I have things pretty good at home. My favorite person is almost always there. My Internet is fast and my beloved MacBook Air is positioned right where I like to sit to surveil my little kingdom. Whatever I like to eat and drink is nearby and if I nod off, which I am prone to do, there is no one to hassle me. Yet five days a week, I have to voluntarily leave my little paradise and go to work in an office where people ask me to do things I don't want to do. I have to do them on someone else's schedule and I don't get much say so in the matter. As hard as it it is to believe, I have been living like this since the early 80s. Remarkable, isn't it?
The worst day of the week is Monday. After two days of relative freedom and being able to sleep at will, my entire system is shocked by the return to "work". Just when I am getting used to the kind of lifestyle to which I would like to become accustomed, I get the shock to the system that returning to the workforce brings.
If you too share in my detestation of Mondays, I have done some research for you to help alleviate some of the downsides of the whole experience. You're welcome.
Mondays Suck—Here are 10 Ways to Make Them Better
14 Ways to Have Better Mondays
Mondays Suck: 10 Monday Tips to Kickstart Your Week
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Another Curated Collection of Free Software
Here's a list of free software that I've tried and liked since the
last
time I posted a similar collection
- ClipGrab, a free alternative to Downie
- Air Battery - A Free App to Monitor Battery Levels
- Keyboard Cowboy - Free and Open-Source Automation Software
- Try PDF Gear, It's Good, It's Free
- Topgrade - Upgrade All the Things
- Activity Watch - Free No Effort Time Tracker
- XnConvert - Free Batch Image Converter and Editor
- Noizio - A Background Sound App for Mac
- Five Free Single Purpose Apps (Dockey, Hyperkey, Hyperduck, Unclack, Cleanup Buddy)
- iTerm - You Don't Have to Be a Developer to Use It
- The Time Machine Mechanic
- Neat Download Manager
- Quitter - A Free Utility That Works
- Reminders Menu Bar
- Opening Batches of Apps, Documents, Folders and Web Pages
- A Folder Plugin for Quicklook
- Notenik - A Well Designed Plain Text Notes Plus App
- Sherlock - Find Usernames from 400 Different Social Networks
- Daily - A Dead Simple Free Task Manager
- The Zen Browser
- Licensed - A Nice Single Purpose App for Keeping Track of Your Software
- Gladys - Free Shelf Utility that Syncs With iOS
- Marta - A Free Dual Pane File Manager
- Five Free Single Purpose Apps (Trash Sweep, Speediness, Justatext, Quick Recorder,KeyCastr)
- Deskpad - A Virtual Monitor for Screen Sharing
- Kiano - A Unique Image Sorter and Viewer for Apple Photos
- Duplicati - Free Encrypted Offsite Backup for Your Mac
- Encrypto - Free File Encryption App
- Good Old Time Machine Editor - A Useful Free Utility
- Virtual Buddy - Run Mac and Linux VMs with Ease on Apple Silicon for Free
- Free Startup Manager with Many Options
- A Different App for Managing Background Items
- FASA - An App to Copy an Image and Paste It as a File
- Task Til Dawn - A Free Mac Automation App
- Three Free Apps for Text and Writing (Nissus Thesaurus, Megawords, Esse)
- Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility
- A Day With Vivaldi Browser
I'm Tired, Boss
In the 1999 movie adaption of Steven King's The Green Mile, the guards go into the condemned man's cell to ask about the arrangements for his execution. They want to know his last meal request and if he wants a preacher to be with him. Ultimately, they even ask if he wants a chance to escape. The prisoner, named John Coffey, tells them he's ready to go, starting his speech with a resigned "I'm tired boss." Brother, I can relate.
Most of my working life hasn't been spent in a physically demanding job. Occasionally in educational tech we have to install computer labs or do large scale moves, but most of the work is honestly spent sitting down, alternately reading and typing. Sure, it can be mentally draining to do something repetitive or to solve a stubborn problem, but it doesn't make your back hurt.
I have had hard jobs that took a physical toll on me. I've worked as a cook in a busy restaurant. I've framed houses, and I spent time in the infantry. I've spent eight-hour summer days walking backwards down the highway carrying a heavy shotgun guarding prisoners the state wanted people to see out on the roads working. My teenage years were spent on my uncle's farm and if that man believes in one thing, it's teaching young people discipline through manual labor. I'm not unfamiliar with fatigue.
Even my leisure pursuits for years were spent chasing the endorphin rush that endurance sports can bring on. I loved 100-mile bike rides and backpacking over mountains. Building up endurance is an adaptive behavior. If you train a lot, you can do some pretty miraculous things.
The tiredness I'm aware of today, isn't a physical feeling though. It might be me yelling "get off my lawn" at the world, I don't know. What I'm tired of is a world that seems in some ways to be evolving for the benefit of the investor class and not for the working stiff. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day is to go to the grocery store and ring up my own order. The store I go to just took out half the cash registers and replaced them with self check out kiosks. Who wants that? I go to McDonald's for a cup of their fine coffee, and the only human I get to deal with is the one who sits the cup in front of me. All the ordering and paying is done through a giant panel that tries to upsell me at every turn. I'm even old enough to remember the days when people didn't have to pump their own gas. Why was that eliminated? It seems to have disappeared at the same time that gas got expensive.
I'm also tired of having to exercise discernment when I used to be able to just believe stuff. I could turn on the evening news and Walter Cronkite would tell me the deal, or may John Chancellor or Harry Reid. These days, I have to make sure I'm not in someone's spin zone when I try to stay informed. Newspapers that were institutions, like The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times, are now operated by people who wouldn't be good contestants on Fear Factor. Some of them wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate, and they all lean towards sane washing the half of the American political system that is now ruling us. To be blunt, they have no balls, and it makes me tired.
I'm tired of a political system that's caters to a powerful minority. In the US, most people support a woman's right to choose. They support raising the minimum wage. They support equal (not special) rights for LGBT people. Do you hear me? Most people, the majority, support those things, yet they are always in contention because a party that has only won a majority twice in 32 years uses every under-handed dirty trick they can think of to subvert the will of the people. It's obscene.
I'm tired of things that used to be free or nominally priced. My kids grew up going to the state run aquariums located in a couple of our coastal towns. Today I have to drop a C-note to take my grandkids. Camping spots at state parks used to be free or just cost a five spot and now they cost as much as some hotel rooms. It seems like libraries may be all we have left, and thank god someone already thought of them. Imagine someone proposing a free service like that today. They'd be labeled a crazy socialist and chased out of town.
Thankfully, there are some things left that give me energy. Being able to exercise free speech fires me up. Seeing my southern state elect a Democrat (who is Jewish) for governor gave me energy. His opponent had labeled himself a Nazi and said he's like to own slaves. We also elected a Democrat for attorney general and state school superintendent. The Republican who ran for the school job had said she wanted Obama and Biden executed on TV and homeschooled her kids over sending them to public school. I am not without hope, and hope gives me energy.

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Camping with Kids

I didn't camp much while growing up other than an occasional trip with the church youth group. In high school, some buddies and I would sometimes sleep under the stars on the hillside beside the pond on my family's farm. Later, my military occupational specialty was in combat arms, so I got to spend plenty of time doing the Army version of camping at Ft. Bragg, Ft. Hood and Ft. Irwin among others.
When my kids were old enough, we liked going to Cliffs of the Nuese state park where I told such terrifying ghost stories that my son late confessed he'd been traumatized for life. My girls could take it or leave it, depending on their mood. They are both adventurous adults now with kids of their own.
Wonder Woman's daughters grew up camping with her and her parents but they haven't gotten into it as adults. Theirs are the kids who live closest to us. We se them often.
Despite our backpacking background, most of the camping we've done in our marriage has been car camping in state parks. There are several within a couple of hours of our house. We decided to take the five youngest to Jones Lake State Park for an overnighter this weekend. We have two campsites, three tents, miniature camp chairs and lots of snacks. The kids all brought electronics, of course, but they are more interested in fishing, playing cards and exploring the woods. I did a little research before we came for some activities to do with them and that's what I'm sharing today.
17 Fun Activities for Your Family's Next Camping Trip
Outdoor Activities and Crafts for Kids While Camping
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AMA - What things do you find difficult?

AMA - What things do you find difficult?
The book, The Road Less Traveled, opens with the memorable sentence, "Life is difficult." Truer words have never been written. Even for people who make everything seem effortless, life still has difficulties. In my more tender moments, as rare as they may be, I try and remember that everyone has rough stuff they are dealing with in one way or another and the rest of us may have no clue what that is.
One of the most difficult things for me these days is dealing with the people who just elected Donald Trump. When I am wronged personally, I usually can get to forgiveness pretty easily. After all, we forgive people not for their sake but for our own because holding on to resentment is toxic and it just wears you down. Personal wrongs are usually about single actions, though. When a person's entire value set allows them to turn the country over to someone like Trump, it's an indication of who they are at the core of their being. Yeah, it's hard for me to deal with.
I've reached the age where the people in my life from previous generations are all in their 70s and 80s. Watching them walk unsteadily across the room using a cane or someone's arm is unsettling. My uncle, who has always been the best example of strength and fortitude to me is still one of the manliest men I know but the days him being the first person I think of when it's time to lift something heavy are gone.
Having been very physically active for a number of years, I have found it hard to bounce back after having knee surgery. The purpose of the surgery was to give me back my mobility, the post recovery. I just haven't gotten my groove back. At this point, it is more psychological than anything else. I want to go to the Alps with Wonder Woman in the new year. I don't want to have to skip anything because I lack the stamina to do it.
Other difficult parts of life in no particular order:
- Not letting how I feel be reflected on my face
- Being asked to do something for someone they should be able to do for themselves
- Remembering where I left my phone, keys and glasses
- Figuring out my cell phone bill
- Getting web hooks to work on my websites, although I think I may have gotten there
- Small talk
- Anything requiring me to open the hood of my car
- Saying no to my grandkids
- Climbing anything (life-long struggle)
- Listening to most 21st century music
- Anything without coffee
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Fedica - Post to Multiple Social Networks at Once, On a Schedule - For Free
There's been a great deal of buzz recently about an iOS only app
called Croissant that can post to X, Mastodon and Bluesky all at once.
From all reports, it's a pretty nice app, but it costs $60. There is a
free app, Openvibe, that also works on macOS and adds posting to Threads
to its ability list, but it's owned by some crypto bros and that may
give some folks pause. I've been using a free service/app for a while on
my Mac and iOS devices that doesn't have those drawbacks, plus it adds a
lot more services and has a built-in scheduler for up to 10 posts.
Additionally, if Mastodon is your jam you can get all kinds of info in your account including:
- Recent follows
- Recent unfollows
- Follower info
The name of the app is Fedica, and it is available on the app store. It also has a web interface. The platforms it connects to are:
- Twitter/X
- YouTube
- TinkTok
- Facebook Pages
- Mastodon
- Bluesky
- Threads
You can post polls and threads on platforms that support them, plus you get unlimited drafts to store posts you may want to make later.
There are some paid options geared more towards business owners than individuals that offer scheduling more than 10 posts and getting more frequent reports, but they are expensive, starting at $29.99 a month. For personal use, the free options are fine for most people.
Slimy Politician Update

To get ready for the morass of corruption and ineptitude we are going to witness over the next four years, I thought it would be a good idea to brush up on a little history of political criminals associated with the guy the Republicans just elected. The last time Trump was president, his national Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, only lasted 22 days before he had to resign for lying to the FBI about, what was it? Oh, Russia, that's right. Trump later pardoned him.
Matt Gaetz - Attorney General Nominee
Tulsi Gabbard - Director of Natiional Intelligence Nominee
Trump's pick for top intel job has been accused of 'traitorous' parroting of Russian propaganda
Kash Patel - Potential Head of FBI
This Unqualified MAGA Addict Might Become Trump’s FBI Director The New Republic
Kash Patel The Magical Rise of a Self-Described ‘Wizard’ in Trump World - The New York Times
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AMA - What is Your Favorite Quality in a Person?

A certain type of person cares very much about their constitutional right to own a gun so that they can defend themselves and their family from any perceived threat. They obviously believe in the need for a violent solution to a potential problem and are willing to take on all the added danger that owning a gun brings to their lives. Hey, after all, who wouldn't do whatever it takes for their family, right? Usually, that very same person is also adamantly against providing any type of accommodation to immigrants from countries where street violence is endemic, making the U.S. the only feasible sanctuary. It might cost them an extra fifty cents a day on their federal income taxes after all. Not only that, the more brown people there are in the country, the greater the chance that they might have kids, earn the right to vote, or speak Spanish in the presence of "real" Americans.
The same person who feels good because they adopt a kid from the Angel Tree at work every Christmas or because their church has a soup kitchen once a week has no problem supporting a political philosophy that would curtail food programs for the poor and eliminate Meals on Wheels for the elderly. They have a tremendous sense of entitlement for everything they feel they have earned and no sympathy for people who aren't in the same circumstances. Lots of people in the military lean conservative (not all though!). If you make a tour of barracks day rooms, you're likely to find lots of TVs turned to Fox News. Despite that, you will not find a more duplicitous, malingering, dishonest, getting free stuff from the government group of people than a service member at their discharge physical. There are people who specialize in helping them come up with every conceivable reason to get VA money for the rest of their lives for dubious medical reasons.
On the flip side, there are those who put themselves on the line for people whose circumstances they'll never share. Every straight high school kid who joins their school's Gay/Straight Alliance voluntarily risks bullying by homophobes. If you look at the roles of civil rights martyrs, you'll see the names of people like Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who lost their lives helping people register to vote. Plenty of white people who enjoy all the privileges that their skin color gives them are adamantly opposed to white supremacy in all its insidious guises. Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, "Nobody is free until everybody is free," and lots of people take that to heart and make it their creed.
I'm not sure what makes a person lack compassion and empathy. Whatever it is, it's unattractive and malignant. When you don't care that poverty, hunger, and untreated diseases exist as long as you've got yours, well, you have lots of company. It seems that the price of gas and eggs is more important to a whole lot of people than anything that might help the less fortunate. And, that's just it. It's more often fortune that dictates one's circumstances than it is blood, sweat, and tears. It's fortune that picks your birthplace and your skin color. It's fortune that lets your job continue to provide for you when others lose theirs. It's fortune that your neighbor's house burned down and not yours. It's fortune that you don't have a crippling illness.
I don't like associating with people who lack compassion. I don't understand their selfishness. I don't want to see them gloat and blame poverty on the poor, blame illnesses on the sick, and claim that any attempt to address the patriarchy, racism, or homophobia is "identity politics." My people are the people who care. My people are the people who make a difference. My people are the ones who make whatever claim America has to greatness a reality.
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The Best App for Subscription Tracking
For many, the consumer landscape today includes subscriptions in
lots of areas, for news. TV channels, music services and software. Was
life better when we all just paid a single cable bill instead of cord
cutting? Was it better when you had to pay an upfront price on any
software you wanted to use? I don't know the answer to that. I remember
when it cost nearly $300 to get a copy of Microsoft Office with Outlook
Included, which didn't include anything like cloud storage or a free
email account. Cable bills got to be well north of $100 a month. These
days, you can use Office in about five minutes for less than $10. If you
get a good deal and sign up for a full year, you can often get a premium
TV subscription for roughly the same amount per month.
Keeping track of all this is challenging though. An old-fashioned spreadsheet might do the trick, but for a polished experience with a few extra bells and whistles, I use an app from Touchbits, Inc. It's called (wait for it) Subscriptions, and it cost either $1.99 a year or $7.99 for a lifetime purchase ($14.99 for a family license). It is a universal app, so it works on your phone, iPad and on your Mac.
For me, it ticks all the boxes. It lets me categorize each subscription (entertainment, software etc.). I also have the option of using tags for further categorization. It can handle weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions. There is a place for the URL associated with my account information for each sub. You set a renewal date for when the next bill is due and for what amount. There is a reminders option for those due dates. You can select a payment account if you want to track that. The Subscriptions app saves a price history so you can see what changes vendors make over time. Finally, there is also a notes field.
The app has analytics to help you track spending over time and by category. There are several view and sorting options as well. The data syncs via iCloud across all platforms. You can export your data via a CSV. It has a backup and restore feature, but it is a proprietary database file and there doesn't look there is a way to import data from anywhere. I've been using it for nearly a year, and I've recommended to lots of people.
What Tabs Do You Keep Open All the Time?

It's hard to believe there was once a time when browsers didn't have tabs. Prior to 2002, opening more than one website at the times required opening multiple instances of a browser. Memory management wasn't as robust as it is now and computers had much less power. These days you often hear of people running hundreds of tabs at the time since browsers can hibernate unused ones easily. I am nowhere near that level, mostly because I don't have the headspace to make use of them all. I normally have two or three windows open at a time depending on whether I'm at home or work. Having 30-45 open tabs is the norm for me.
If you are one of those 500 tabs open at the time people, please, please leave me a comment and try to explain why you roll like that. I';d be fascinated.
These are the ones I almost always have open:
Window 1
- Activity Watch - a time tracking app that monitors apps used a websites visited
- Next DNS - one of my security tools
- Gmail - After nearly 20 years of using Gmail, I still feel most comfortable using the web interface over any email app
- Yahoo Mail - I use this account just for newsletters and mailing lists
- Google Drive - I use this for different personal documents like tracking the words written during Writing Month and the list of apps I've reviewed as well as automated documents from IFTTT that I keep an eye on
- Inoreader- I love the web interface of my RSS provider more than any app
- Pocket - since the death of Omnivore this is my read it later service
- Raindrop.io - my bookmarking service
Window 2
Social Tab Group
- Social.lol - My home Mastodon instance
- 500.social - Another Mastodon instance I belong to
- Onephoto.club - a travel photography Mastodon instance
- Another private Mastodon instance with a few friends
- BlueSky - mostly for POSSE
- Threads - mostly for POSSE
- Facebook - primarily for family use
- LinkedIn - fascinated with how weird it is
- Fedica - a free service to post to multiple social media sites at once and.or schedule future posts
Blogging Tab Group
The rest of the tabs I have open normally will include a news site or two, a few blogs and a few open Google docs. I use an app called HistoryHound that consolidates my history from several browsers into one searchable database when I need to reopen something.
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Blogging as an Art Form

Ask me anything - Do you consider blogging to be an art form?
One thing I absolutely despise is elitism is any form, followed closely by gatekeeping. Sure, people have varying degrees of talent, but I prefer an open society that encourages folks to try their hand at things. It is much better than one that acts like the plebes should stay on the sidelines while the real pros do their thing. That's why I don't find it the least bit pretentious when anyone describes themselves as an artist, regardless of the form they choose. I smile when I see anyone present a drawing or a poem or a landscape photo to the world. It's an attempt to bring something conjured in one's creative spirit to life, shared with the hope that it will spark a feeling in others.
When I look at the effort it takes to write regularly, I know that it takes a muse of some sort. It takes real effort to come up with an idea, flesh it out, polish it and present it. I give bonus points when someone's post contains a hint of vulnerability, a confession that not everything in life is easy. "Hey world! I have a wart! Want to see it?" Laugh if you want to, that's a thing an artist would say. Let's face it, it's hard to come up with something original in a world filled with people who can say whatever they want, whenever they want. Just the act of trying conveys a certain sense of bravery.
Emily Dickinson never saw one of her poems published, yet she continued to write breathtaking poetry for the entirety of her life. Stieg Larsson wrote the entirety of the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and died before it was published and became an international bestseller. There are many other examples like them. Artists write because they have something to say, something they have to get out. It's not about being recognized or lauded as much as it is about creating because doing so is a representation of our own humanity. When Og, the cave man, was drawing on the walls of his home all those years ago, he had no concept of received admiration. HE just had something inside himself that he wanted to get out.
Most of us have bloggers we admire. I told Keenan last week that I wasn't jealous. I just wished I could write the way they write. They responded kindly, saying, "I like the way that you write like you." What an affirmation. To me it means I've practiced my own art form enough to have developed my own style, something recognizable. That's the thing about almost any skill. When you practice, you get better. Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote about the 10,000-hour rule, where he proposed that The Beatles, Bill Gates and other successful people reached the heights they did because of how much they practiced, how much experience they had. That's why I write every day without fail. This is my art form and I want to get better at it.
That's why I don't give any credence to the criticism of blogging challenges. Writing every day isn't a gimmick. It isn't forced, necessarily. It is learned behavior and discipline. Writing is just taking what your thinking and putting the words down on record. If you think every day, and you do, then you can write every day. No one said making art was supposed to be easy. Picasso probably had days when he asked himself, "What the hell am I going to draw today?"
To all my fellow artists, do your thing! Do it often. Do it for yourself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Internal validation is the best validation.
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Redact Privacy - An App for Cleaning Up Your Internet Presence
If you've been online for a long time, you very well may have
accounts on dozens of services, including social media platforms.
Despite your best attempts at privacy, there may well be old posts
floating around that you wouldn't want associated with you currently.
People change over time, and comments that seemed clever when you were a
teenager may seem pretty cringe today. There are services out there that
offer to clean all that up for you, but they are expensive and require
that you turn your credentials over to a third party. Luckily, there is
a universal Mac app that can do total or selective removal of your
content from 30+ different apps, websites and services. It's called Redact Privacy. It removes posts, DMs,
photos, videos, likes, and other unique content on various social
networks. You can delete by keyword, sentiment, content type, and more.
It has a free tier that will :
- Delete unlimited tweets, retweets, and likes from Twitter/X
- Anonymize unlimited Reddit posts and comments
- Delete up to 30 days of content on Discord & Facebook
To access the other services requires a subscription, but paying for a single month for $7.99 should give you adequate time to clean up your posts. Subscribing lets you take advantage of scheduled deletions if for some reason you need that. The app is available on the Mac App Store.
The paid version offers:
- All social media services fully unlocked
- Full access to the automated scheduler
- Deep-scan your posts with the File Importer
- Advanced social media management tools
- Edit and Deletion modes
- Priority, 1:1 support
- Custom text editing options
- Manage entire servers or communities with "Moderator mode"
Included services include:
- Discord
- Anilist
- Slack
- Imgur
- Letterboxd
- Deviantart
- Disqus
- Gyazo
- Skype
- Spotify
- Steam
- Github
- Pixiv
Twitter - What Was Taken from Us

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter and his toxic nature became clearly evident, lot's of people left the platform, with the socially aware tech crowd leading the way. After last week's election and Musk's role in it, there is another mass migration under way. Part of me thinks "better late than never" and part of me thinks"you should have been gone already." To e fair, I wasn't a big Twitter user. I didn't delete my account immediately because I rarely used it. It was never all that important to me and in my first six months on Mastodon, I posted more than I did in 15 years on Twitter. Still, I was very much aware of it and made use of it during times of fast breaking news. I preferred to monitor things like presidential debates through Tweets rather than subject myself to watching them on TV. When January 6th in all it's ugliness was happening, I followed it on Twitter.
Anyone with an interest in the Internet or the social history of the 21st century might get a whiff of nostalgia looking over the history of the platform. The idea for it was sketched out in a single day at its predecessor company, Odeo. A picture exists of Jack Dorsey's legal pad with a rudimentary sketch of the information flow that was imagined. We know who the first person to coin the term "tweet" was and we know who and when introduced hashtags, a carry over from IRC to Twitter.
To those who spent much time on the platform, nothing has really replaced it. I love Mastodon and plan to use it for the foreseeable future but it isn't the same. Neither in Bluesky or Threads or anything else. I don't know if the fractured outlooks people have on the world will ever again allow something like it to flourish.
Take a trip down memory lane. Look at what we had. Look at what happened to it.
History of Twitter - Wikipedia
A brief history of Twitter From its founding in 2006 to Musk takeover
What We Lost When Twitter Became X The New Yorker
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AMA - Morning Person or Evening Person?

Today's Ask me anything is - Are you a morning person or an evening person?
I love to sleep as much as anyone I know. My ability to lapse into unconsciousness is my superpower and one for which I enjoy a certain bit of notoriety among my friends and family. But, when I am done with a nap or a night's sleep, I'm not one to lie there and try to drift back off. When I am done, I am done. I'm ready to get up and do something else. I love to get up most mornings. The thought of that first cup of coffee and the chance to catch up on eight hours of missed news is too tempting to pass up.
I am nearly robotic upon waking, which is normally around 4:30 AM. We have one of those wonderful Nespresso one-cup coffee makers that brew great coffee quickly. I stand by it, bleary-eyed but patient as I wait for it to dispense its life-giving elixir. I make my way to my laptop, disconnect my backup drive, and begin the morning IT routine. First, I start my daily journal in Obsidian, one I will transfer to Day One at the end of the day. Then I add my daily app review, written the day before, to Reddit at r/MacApps. I don't even link back to my blog anymore. The moderators there added AppAddict to the sidebar, and that drives plenty of traffic my way. Then I check Mastodon and Micro.blog to see if I got any messages overnight. My friends in Europe are typically active already, so I see what they're up to.
Wonder Woman gets up at the same time I do. We spend the first 30 minutes or so together before she leaves for her morning run. Sometimes she's only gone for 30 minutes or so, but it is not unheard of for her to run a half-marathon before work, particularly if she's working from home and has a bit more time. Prior to having my knees replaced, I used to go for a walk in the mornings, a habit I need to rekindle. I loved being out on the dark streets listening to music or a podcast.
One of the other things I enjoy looking at in the morning is retrospectives from the day's history. I can do this in the Photos app, in Day One, and on Facebook, where my account is now 16 years old. It's fun to be reminded of past getaways, and to see pictures of my grandkids when they were younger. What's not so fun is to see what outrage Donald Trump has committed on this date in history. As an example, today I see posts relating to his quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine when he withheld military aid in an attempt to get them to investigate the Bidens. That got him impeached the first time.
By the time Wonder Woman has returned from her run, I am usually into the part of my morning that many people find funny. It's my pre-work nap. Despite just having slept for eight hours and having consumed coffee, I normally try to doze off for another few minutes before showering and getting dressed for work. For most of my working life, I had to leave a great deal earlier than I do now. I used to have to be on the job at 7:30 AM. My office was 30 miles away. These days, I don't have to be at work until 8:00 AM to an office that is less than 10 miles from home.
As much as I enjoy my job, a low-pressure tech support role at the same university where Wonder Woman is a big wheel, I don't always relish the start of the day. I routinely remark with something grouchy and profane when she summons me to get in the car for my chauffeured ride across town to our lovely campus. By the time we get moving though, I cheer up. My wife is my favorite person. I enjoy the brief interlude to chat about the day ahead, to crack jokes, and make plans for the evening. Everyone should be so lucky
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Text Count - An App for Those Who Write
As a person who writes a lot for my job and for fun, I have a need
to make sure I'm not being to verbose and to make sure that what I'm
composing is appropriate for the audience it's aimed at. I found a
simple tool by indy developer Arthur Smith, Text Count,
that makes it easy to get character, word and sentence counts and to get
a readability score on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. It analyzes sentence
length and word length, plus syllable count to assign a score from 1-100
to the text. The higher the score is, the better. Most business
communication should fall in the range from 60-70. A low score indicates
that you need to simplify what you've written.
Another useful element of Text Count is an estimated reading and speaking time. The app does not require you to paste the text anywhere. It analyzes what you copy to the clipboard. For people like me, who do their writing in a text editor instead of something like Microsoft Word, it's a handy tool.
Some high-end writing apps like iA Writer have some of these tools built in. Obsidian offers a word and character count out of the box, and you can download a plugin for a readability score.
Text Count is $2.99 at Gumroad.
Five of My Favorite TV Series

Broadchurch
This British crime drama, filmed in scenic Dorset, tells the tale of a child murder and its aftermath. Starring Olivia Coleman, David Tenant and Jody Whitaker. Any of the three of them makes any show worth watching but the fireworks and raw emotion of Broadchurch are something special. Make sure you watch the British version of the show. For some weird reason, an America version was filmed and it is a poor comparison.
The Wire
Regarded by many as the best television show ever made, the five season's of The Wire loosely follow the Baltimore Police Department and drug gang while also spending time with longshoremen, politicians, newspaper reporters and school teachers. All of these intermix in an unflinching look at the intertwined cultures of a modern American city. The acting, the screen writing and the directing are all excellent. Some of the characters from the show live in my imagination years after watching the show for the last time.
The Sopranos
A classic by any measure, The Sopranos removed the glamor and mysticism from the mob created by The Godfather and revealed the extremely flawed human beings who make it up. Like The Wire, the screenwriting and acting is top notch and the characters unforgettable. It's almost impossible to watch one episode at the time if you have more available.
The Fall
Starring two of the world's beautiful people, Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson, this story of a Northern Irish serial killer and the cop, imported from the Metropolitan Police to track him down is as suspenseful as anything I have ever watched. A scene that takes place in Belfast hospital emergency room after a shooting is a revealing testament to the combat medical skills doctos in that part of the world learned during The Troubles.
Lonesome Dove
I regard Lonesome Dove as the best American novel ever written and this television adaption starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall among many others may be the best network show since Roots. It tells the story of an epic cattle drive out of Texas and has everything you'd ever want in a western. It's a must watch
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A Man With a Cold

I don't actually have a cold, but if I'd titled this post "A Sick Man" then everyone would have thought it was about Trump and avoided it because we are all so tired of him and the attention he gets. To further obfuscate things, I don't believe I am actually sick either, just feeling the after affects of a couple of vaccinations. This has happened to me as punishment for telling Wonder Woman that I've never felt bad after getting a shot, possibly insinuating that people who do are experiencing a psychosomatic reaction. She said her arm was a little stiff at the injection site, prompting me to wave mine around, windmill fashion to show that I was just fine.
I generally escape the variety of communicable diseases that seem to plague some folks. Thirt years of working in the close confines of first a prison and then public schools seems to have given me the immune system of a plague doctor. While others complain of reoccurring sinus infections, bronchitis or other upper respiratory illnesses, I just get the sniffles once in a while or a mildly stopped up nose, both of which are adequately handled by OTC medications.
When I do come down with something, I usually have company. Wonder Woman and I have lived through two bouts with Covid, a horrible flu and joint food poisoning from a sketchy Mexican restaurant. We lie in bed together so that our kids won't have to wonder around the house to find our bodies if we end up dying. The bad case of flu happened when one of our daughters was visiting at Christmas. Her family drove all the way hear from central Florida and barely got to see us since we rarely ventured out of our bed room as we did not want to infect them.
I am not one of those men the Internet likes to mock when I don't feel well. I am not prone to moaning or any sort of drama. What I want more than anything is to be left alone. Headaches and bodily aches and pains tend to make me a little cross and ill natured. I usually don't feel up to any sort of prolonged conversation. I want nothing more than to be left alone so I can sleep. Sleep is the great cure all. The more I am unconscious, the less awareness I have of my plight and the better I like it.
Being sick on a weekend is the worst. You don't even get an unexpected break from work since you are already off. Thankfully, my white collar job offers PTO so if there is a need to stay home, my pay won't get docked. I remember the jobs I had early in my life when no work meant no pay and often those types of jobs also wanted a doctor's note, forcing you to actually pay to take a sick day. Isn't American great?
If I were one of those science denying Republicans, or RFK, Jr., I would be fine since that type no longer believes in the proven efficacy of vaccinations for some reason. That's fine. The fewer of those people in the world, the better off we all are. I know that wasn't a nice thing to sy, but you'll have to excuse me. I don't feel well.
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Search Selected Text with Snapsrch
Snapsrch is a utility that lets you conduct searches on selected text in a convenient popup. Out of the box, it is preconfigured to search Google, Bing, Wiktionary, Google Translate and Wikipedia. Adding other search options is a breeze. I included AllMusic, YouTube, Amazon, Max, DuckDuckGo and Reddit in just a few minutes. I have not included any AI searches in my setup, but they are just as easy to set up.
Using it is as easy as selecting the text and opening Snapsrch with a hotkey. If you don't have any text selected, and you invoke the hotkey, you can type a query into the popup. You can choose the window size you want for the popup, by selecting user elements for iPhone, iPad, Mac or custom. You can also choose to invoke Snapsrch with a mouse or trackpad gesture. If you are a Popclip user, there is an extension available to add Snapsrch. This allows you to consolidate any search terms you are using into one icon, decluttering the Popclip interface.
Other Snapsrch options allow you to hide custom elements of any search page you create and to have them load to a specific location on the page. Snapsrch has OCR capabilities in several languages, so you can even search for text in images and videos. There is a built-in history of your searches you can toggle on or off. It is helpful when you need to refer back to a previous search.
Snapsrch is available on the Mac App Store for $5.99. You can use the trial version as much as you want. You just get a popup asking you to purchase it every 50 uses.
This is Where I Find All That Great Software

Rarely does a day go by without me downloading, installing and testing a new app or two. I'm currently dealing with an installed app count of 559. Part of the reason I have so many is because I'm always on the lookout for new apps to review over at AppAddict, my software blog with over 225 reviews already published an a new one being added every day. I have several sources for finding software and today I'm sharing them.
r/MacApps
This is one of the friendlier communities on Reddit. It's a place where software fans and devs both post. It's well moderated and spam free.
Tool Finder
Get over 450+ reviews, insights, videos, tutorials, and ratings for productivity apps for work & life.
Open Source Software
This website currently lists 642 free and open-source titles from a variety of categories. It's updated daily and makes it easy for devs to submit their titles for inclusion in the collection.
MacUpdate
This huge repository lets you narrow your search by several criteria. The link above is just for free software and it returned 5650 titles! The titles are in order by date last upated/released.
thriftmac
Thriftmac is a collection currently numbering 413 totally free Mac apps.Each app is assigned a category and accompanied by a short description.
MacMenuBar
I linked to the recently added page but it's easy to get to the entire collection and to filter for just free apps or just open-source.
Mr. Free Tools
Mr. Free Tools is a directory site with an advanced search engine that helps you find the best free software, apps, and tools from around the web. Those free solutions can help you with work, projects, studies, or hobbies.
Awesome Mac
Awesome Mac is a GitHub page with links to a huge variety of Mac software. The free and open-source titles are clearly marked.
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AMA - “What’s the best music-related experience of your life so far?”

Today's question comes from hiro It has been answered by gabz, Tyler and Helen.
What is the best musical experience of your life?
Rather than describe a concert to you—and I have seen some wonderful acts—I'd rather talk about a quest I went on. This is a story about a particular time on the Internet when ethics were a little more cloudy than they are today, or at least that's my story and I'll be sticking to it. Somewhere around the turn of the century, two things collided in my world. I became one of the first people in my city to get broadband internet by virtue of having signed up on the waiting list years ahead of time when it was first opened up. The other circumstance was the heyday of Napster, a program that let you share your music collection for the rights to access the collections of other people, which you could then download at will.
Napster debuted in June of 1999, and by July of 2001, it was shut down by court order. This was a time before purchasing and downloading music online was widely available. The iPod and the iTunes store were still several years away. The way most people obtained music was by driving their car to the store and purchasing CDs. If you wanted to listen to music on your computer, you either slipped the CD into the drive or you went through a process known as ripping, where each song was converted into a format known as MP3. Hard drives were much smaller at the time, so you really had to keep an eye on disk space. I used a Windows computer I'd built myself in a giant tower that was almost three feet tall. It had room for three hard drives and a CD drive, all of which I used.
Rolling Stone Magazine, then and now, was fond of creating lists of songs and albums for music fans to argue about. I found an article online with their version of the top 500 albums of all time. I copied the entire list into an Excel spreadsheet and added two columns: HAVE and NEED. I went through the list and checked off the albums I already owned. As a classic rock fan, most of the highly regarded albums by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the like were ones I already owned. I didn't have any hip-hop, and my soul and blues albums were pretty sparse. It was definitely a white boy's music collection.
Each night after supper, I would sit down at my computer and search first for entire albums and, in some cases, for individual songs to piece other albums together. I relied on a website that still exists to this day, Allmusic.com, to find the track lists for the albums since the Rolling Stone article I used didn't have that information. I would listen to the tracks to make sure I wasn't getting a live version if I was trying to build a studio album and vice versa. Some songs were shared at a low quality, forcing me to download second and third copies to find ones that matched what I already had.
I was in my mid-30s while I was doing this, probably at the north end of the Napster-using demographic. The typical user was a college student with a computer connected to their school's broadband connection. Most people at home were just starting to give up their screeching dial-up for cable modems and DSL lines at the time. Because Napster skewed towards younger people, finding older albums—particularly ones that were out of print—was difficult. Two I remember searching for over a months-long period were Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music by Ray Charles, released in 1962, and Phil Spector, Back to Mono (1958 - 1969). The latter album, in fact, was the last one I needed to complete the entire 500 album collection. I remember the night I finally completed it.
As a result of searching for and curating the editions of so many songs, I was exposed for the first time to classic 90s hip-hop in the form of Dr. Dre's The Chronic and N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton. I got my first Frank Sinatra album, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash all had albums on the list, and so I found out that I enjoyed their brand of country music. I found blues artists like Little Walter and Bobby Bland.
For a moment in time, I had a veritable music museum available to me. I could discuss and play just about anything a critic could name as being influential to the modern music scene. Over twenty years have passed now. When Apple released their top 100 albums of all time last year, I was deeply, deeply offended when I realized I didn't have them all. In fact, I didn't have anything by Frank Ocean or Kendrick Lamar, two of the artists with top 10 albums. Not only that, I couldn't even name any of their songs. That's on me. After Napster was shut down, I once again started purchasing music, both CDs and through downloads. My musical taste shifted from classic rock to alt-country, which is what I like to listen to today. For a period of time, though, I was on top of the musical world.
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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McRae, 1915
Three Free System Utilities
Deeper
In the spirit of old standbys like Onyx and TinkerTool, Deeper provides a GUI to tweak multiple system settings, including a few I haven't seen before, including:
- Make TextEdit open with a new document instead of the file dialog box
- Turn off the verification of disk images. I've probably opened 10,000 disk images in my life and I don't remember one failing to verify. I've wasted hours!
- Make the "Save As" dialog box open in extended form
Pester
Similar to the paid app, Due, this alarm/timer app will keep reminding you to do something until you kill it. It's full of thoughtful touches, like showing the amount of time left on a timer in the dock icon. For alerts, you can choose any combination of an onscreen message (which also displays the time), a bouncing Pester Dock icon, a spoken version of your message, or to play an alert. When creating alarms you can use abbreviations like 20m for 20 minutes, 11a for 11:00 A.M. or tomorrow, next Saturday etc. The alarms are reusable, which is convenient if you use Pester to remind you to check laundry or take a break at a certain time of day
Übersicht
Widgets have become more useful as more and more developers have added to them to their apps, but there is still a use for widgets not connected to apps to provide information at a glance for all sorts of system functions and external information. This app lets anyone with developer chops use JavaScript + React's JSX to roll their own widgets. The rest of us can choose from a gallery containing widgets like:
.
Finding an Internet Community

Mastodon
I don't know that their is a universally accepted definition of online communities. I would think that a community is definitely different than a platform. There may be communities within platforms, like my beloved OMG.LOL community that resides on Mastodon at social.lol. I wouldn't say that all Mastodon instances are communities, since the large ones, like Mastodon.social have over 800K members. There are Mastodon instances for all kinds of communities from PKM aficionados to different flavors of LGBT folks. A good tool to get information on the rules and make up of different instances is the iOS app Mastowatch
Blog Platforms
Aside from social media, there are communities of bloggers who use the same platform. You can see some of these at :
- BearBlog Discover Feed
- Scribbles Explore Page
- Microblog Discover Feed
- I don't know if Pika has a directory. Can someone let me know if it does?
Forums
Here is a master list of forums in all kinds of categories, including:
- Audio
- Music
- Photography
- Fashion
- Repair Hobbies, Vocational Hobbies, Appliances and Home Goods
- Gaming
- Tech
- Crafting
- Sex
- Finance
- Fitness
- Sports
- Cars
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I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.
This Week's Bookmarks - McDonaldland, Connecting Social Networks, Baseball Bat Bros, Otters, Polenta Recipe, TV Show Suggestions, When Sober Influencers Relapse

Shady Things About The McDonaldland Characters
Bridges & The Last Network Effect - Connecting Social Networks
Influencer Brothers Are Selling More Baseball Bats Than Pro Athletes - Bloomberg
Shetland man’s bond with otter becomes subject of award-winning film | Scotland | The Guardian
Italian sausage and peppers with creamy polenta | Sunbasket
Somebody Somewhere | Official Website for the HBO Series | HBO.com
AMA - What Is It You Long For

This question was asked by Curious Magpie. It has also been answered by Anniegreens. Do you experience Hiraeth (a deep longing for something)? What is it you long for - a time, a place, a feeling?
The greatest adventure of my life was my honeymoon, a blissful 156 day long-distance hiking journey that saw my new wife and I walk across 14 states along the Appalachian Trail. I think and talk about it often and probably always will. Even the best of regular life has its monotony. You sleep in the same place. You see the same things when you look out the window. The clerk you see at the supermarket rang you out last week and when you return next week, they will ring you out again. It's very possible to be extremely happy amidst all that sameness, bit it can hardly be described as an adventure. It's more like contentment.
During the time we spent walking through the mountains, every day brought things we'd never seen before. Every night we slept in a new place, whether it was a tent site, a shelter or a boisterous hostel in some trail town. Long distance hikers have only three things that are constants: the unending evaluation of their energy levels, the location of drinkable water and the decision on where to spend the night. Everything else is just the relentless magnetic pull down the trail, putting one foot in front of the other, moving toward the terminus of their journey, no matter how far distant.
The pure physicality of the journey makes for many, may opportunities for small victories. Every single time you make it to the top of a mountain, it means that you've won. Every time you wade across a river, your unbeaten streak continues. When you cross into another state, it is both a finish line and a starting line in a slow race to the next border. It doesn't take long during a through hike to achieve peak fitness. Any excess body weight melts off. There is real magic in knowing that you have earned the ability to do almost anything you desire with your physical skills. When you see day hikers along the trail, huffing and puffing as they labor towards a peak and you saunter pass them with your fully loaded backpack, knowing they are climbing but one mountain that day while you are climbing a half dozen, you can't help but appreciate the hiking machine you have become.
One of the true joys during that journey was the chance to appreciate things we take for granted during our normal lives. When you spend most nights in a sleeping bag that is growing increasingly dirty as you lay on the ground inside your tent or the hard wooden boards of a shelter floor, the chance to get a rare hotel room as you hike through a trail town is magical. Sliding between clean sheets on a soft mattress with air conditioning is to experience true luxury. Imagine living off cold poptarts, oatmeal made with creek water, unrefrigerated cheese and the other foods that make up a backpacking diet. Then, while you're making your way through the incredibly rough wilderness of southern Maine, you come to a town like Rangely and you sit down for a restaurant meal of fresh lobster. You know in your heart of hearts that nothing will ever taste that good again.
As adults without trust funds, we have worked without much of a pause since our teens. We were privileged to take a six month break from that grind because my wife sold her partnership in her business. Just the freedom to be able to live a life that isn't tied to an obligation to report to X location to do X task for eight hours a day, five days a week was a once in a lifetime opportunity. When you can live your life without having to be responsible to anyone but your partner, the days have a different flavor. People often remark that if the two of us survived teh stress of walking 2,000 miles together, then we must be destined to be together. They do not know how much truth there is to that observation. We became so in tune with each other, do defendant on each other for mental, physical and emotional support. It has lasted through the entirety of our marriage.
So there it is. That's what I long for. All of those feelings and experiences during that period of my life are precious memories. I will always have them.
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Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT
As a Mac automation fan, I make use of apps most people are
familiar with, like Keyboard
Maestro, Hazel
and Better
Touch Tool. Since 2010, however, I have also used a web service to
connect a wide variety of websites (including Reddit) and Mac apps in a
number of ways. That service is IFTTT (If
This Then That) and it offers over 2000 integrations with apps and
web services many of then Mac compatible.
Here are some of the ways I use IFTTT with Mac Apps
Create Day One Journal Entries
- Social media posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
- Liked YouTube videos
- Saved Pocket articles
- RSS feeds from Mastodon and my blogs
- A geofence around my office to record what time I get to work (requires iPhone)
- TV shows watched via Trakt
- Daily weather report
Inoreader
- Starred articles saved to Pocket
- Create new task in Things 3 to read starred articles
- Saved posts copied to Dropbox as text files
Obsidian
Google Sheets
- Save URLs of Pockets articles
- Save TV shows watched via Trakt
- Save URLs of Raindrop.io bookmarks
- Record arrivals and departures from office (Requires iPhone)
Raindrop.io
- Save Raindrop.io bookmarks to Notion
Apple Photos
- Save a copy of iOS screenshots to Google Drive
IFTTT is a subscription service. Billed annually, it is $3.33 a month. Billed monthly, the rate is $3.99.
A Post Election Survival Kit, Tools to Use

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of reading mortems on why the Democrats did so poorly on November 5th. The very same people who told us the race was too close to call or that Harris/Walz were going to win nor purport to know why Trump did so well, and I'm just not putting much stake on that particular hot take. I just want to know what do and where to go now. I've assembled a small collection of links that I think are informative and motivating in the aftermath of the Republican win.
Share Me: The New Media List - Alternatives to WaPo and NYT - Oliver Willis put together a list of news sources that won't try to normalize Trump or make excuses for him. These news outlets won't tell you that everything is normal and they won't call white supremacy and fascism by more acceptable names.
Election Grief Is Real. Here’s How to Cope | Scientific American - If you weren't effected on an emotional lever by the election then WTF is wrong with you? We lost a great deal with Trump's second ascendance. The next four years are going to be some of the most challenging in American history and I for one, wasn't looking forward to a challenge. I'm getting old, and I wanted the autumn of my life to be a hopeful period. Knowing that it isn't makes me sad and this article has practical advice to that end.
AI Resume Screening Tools Biased Against Black Male Names, Study Finds - This is only tangentially related to the election. It is a reminder that all those tech CEOs who emailed their congratulations to Trump don't give AF about POC any more than George Bush did after Katrina.
OpenHistoricalMap - In case you wanted to see how the world changes over time, this is for you. It's never been a static body politic, and it never will be. We can hope against hope Ukraine still exists after Trump pulls the plug on American aid and starts covertly supporting Vladimir Putin.
Non-profit newsrooms that speak truth to power In case you need a different type of media than what is listed in the first link above, here are even more sites to get a clear understanding of issues that will only grow more important as time passes. Some of these organizations specialize in core issues of the progressive movement, like climate change and criminal justice
Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan - More Americans will watch the Super Bowl in January than voted this month. The oligarchs have manufactured a society that values entertainment over information. Joe Rogan, a steroid abusing man whose claim to fame was making reality TV contestants eat out of garbage dumpsters is now one of the most influential people in America. Unfortunately that model doesn't translate to the left where our most valuable orator is a man that was editor of the Harvard Law Review and President of the United States.
Trump Has Won, but Democracy Is Not Over - The Atlantic This is not the end, beautiful friend, this is not the end. Yes, there is a different vibe now than there was eight years ago when Trump beat Clinton. People are less outwardly hostile and may seem resigned, but there is a raging storm beneath the surface. We have been beaten, but we have not been defeated,
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AMA - What Historical Figure Would Your Bring Back?

Denis asked - Here is a wand. With it, you can bring back anyone from the dead from any era, at any point of their life and for only one day. Who do you resuscitate for 24h, at what point in their life and to do what?
This is the kind of question meant for me. I love history and I am prone to spending a great deal of time pondering things that will never happen. I have contemplated what I would do with my lottery winnings for hours despite the fact that I don't buy lottery tickets. I'm bad at math but I'm not that bad at math.
After last Tuesday, I'm tempted to say that I'd be willing to bring back Lee Harvey Oswald. I'd get him a good military grade rifle, not that Italian made mail order thing he used last time. Of course, Lee loved Russia, having lived there. His wife was also Russian so it might be hard to persuade him to do the job so he might not be the best candidate for this experiment.
With what America is facing right now, I also think that bringing back Dr. King for a 24-hour marathon strategy session would be a good idea. Aside from the power he conveyed with his amazing oratorical powers, he was also an organizing genius and man who could inspire others to do hard things. He successfully led the Montgomery bus boycott and the March into Selma. He advised the people of Birmingham how to deal with Bull Connor. I think he could quickly analyze the current political situation and help the resistance, such as it is, on a plan to mitigate the damage that's going to happen over the next four years. I'm thinking though, that it might be too heart breaking to only have him for a single day. I don't know if we could stand that loss again.
As long as Paul McCartney is still alive, I'd be tempted to bring back John Lennon for a day, give him a guitar, a pen and some paper and lock the two of them in the studio at Abbey Road with a supply of strong tea and some good weed. There have been many good song writers in the rock era but no one even comes close to those two guys. I don't know if they could put together an entire album in 24 hours. I'd settle for just a couple more songs to listen to for the rest of my life.
Since this exercise has been pretty male-centric, I think I'd better also think of a few women to consider. I'd definitely want to talk to someone smarter than me, someone creative with a unique way of explaining the world. Three candidates that quickly come to mind are Dorothy Parker, Virginia Wolfe and Sylvia Plath. It would be really cool if Denis would let me cheat and bring the three of them back simultaneously. Can you imagine being in the room to hear that conversation? I wouldn't say a word. They could all be pretty scathing and I don't think I'd want to risk becoming famous for being humiliated by a memorable one-liner.
Forced to choose someone outside of the 20th century, I think I'd got with Henry David Thoreau. I love smart and eloquent people. He qualifies. I think I'd come up with a series of questions for him to pontificate upon. We'd go for a walk in the park that now exists to preserve the site of his famous cabin. I would tape everything he says and have it transcribed. It would make a best selling book and I'd happily live off the profits for the rest of my life.
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A Day With Vivaldi Browser
I decided to be open-minded and spend some time with a new browser
for a few days after using
Microsoft Edge for the last two years for reasons related to my job.
The browser I decided to test is Vivaldi and after a day of using it
just like I use my normal daily driver here are a few of the things I
like.
Security
I've been concerned that the implementation of Manifest 3 browser extensions in Chromium browsers, preventing them from using the full version of uBlock Origin, would be an issue. After turning on Vivaldi's built in tracker, ad and third party cookie blocking, I added uBlock Origin Lite and tested security at Ad-Block Tester and Toolz Adblock, scoring a 99% effectiveness rate on both of them. Vivaldi has built-in tools to block cookie popups across the board.
Power Consumption
Vivaldi allows you to set custom hibernation times on individual tabs or on stacks, its name for tab groups. You can also set Vivaldi to open up with lazy loading, where tabs stay in a hibernating state until you need them. I typically operate with two or three windows and 30–45 tabs at all time, so this presents a good opportunity to really reduce battery strain.
Appearance
To avoid distraction, I wanted to use the identical colors I'd used in Edge. Modifying the default theme only took a couple of minutes using a color picker and hex codes.
Tab Management
When you open Vivaldi for the first time, you are asked to choose if you want vertical or horizontal tabs. You can move them later if you decide to. You can also take advantage of split screen tabs, allowing you to view two web pages side by side. My favorite feature out of all the tools is saved sessions. You can save all your open tabs and reopen them later from a button on the left side toolbar. This is a separate feature from the workspaces that Vivaldi lets you create and reopen as needed. You can even go a step further and use a separate profile with a different email address to keep your work and personal browsing from mixing. This lets you use different extensions, passwords and settings at every level.
Built in Mail, Calendar, Notes and Feed Reader
It was easy to set up my primary Gmail account and the Yahoo account I use just for newsletters. Adding a selection of Google Calendars and Apple Calendars was also a breeze. While I prefer to use my subscription to Inoreader for my full-blown RSS needs, it is convenient to stick a few of my favorite sites in the Vivaldi built-in feed reader for quick access.
Side Panel
Vivaldi has an option to any site you want in a panel on the side of the browser, helpful when doing research with Wikipedia or looking up bookmarks on Raindrop.io. You can also view your browser based bookmarks there along with notes, downloads, history, your reading list, a translation service, a list of tabs from across all current Vivaldi sessions on multiple computers, saved sessions, calendars and tasks
Thanks to @jimmitchell@mastodon.social for doing the legwork @manton for giving him the go ahead, I am now representing MB in NC!
Why Don't You Try a New Browser Today?

The browsers people use to access the Internet have varied widely over the past 30 years. The scumbag billionaire. Marc Andreessen, was once a brilliant software engineer who led the way in introducing Netscape (previously known as Mosaic) to the world. The market share it garnered was north of 95%/ The next major shift was to Internet Explorer, the browser installed on all Windows machines from Windows 95 through Windows 8. It swallowed the Internet and eventually had as large a market share as Netscape ever did. Then, here came Google. It's Chrome browser is nearly ubiquitous today, despite it's many faults, primarily privacy concerns and battery drain on mobile. Many Mac users stay with the default browser on their computers, Safari, which is also native in the iPhone.
Chances are, you are probably a Chrome or Safari user unless you're a techie, in which case chances are you may be a Firefox user since it has better privacy than it's main competitions. If you have been using the same browser for a long time, I'm suggesting that you try an alternative for a few days, just in case you're missing something.
Every major browser has import options that let you bring in your bookmarks, passwords and history if you are currently using one of the major players.
Here are a few choices:
Microsoft Edge - this has been my workhorse on Windows, Mac and iOS over the past two years. It is a stable browser with a huge variety of features, most of which are easy to turn off are hid if you don't want to see them. It's based on Chrome, so the extensions available are plentiful. You can read more about why I like it here,
Firefox - this descendant of Netscape is the one of the most private of browsers and it still allows you to use the most powerful ad-blocking extensions (see uBlock Origin) which are being phased out in Chrome based browsers. For an open source alternative using the Firefox engine, try the Zen Browser
Brave - this is another browser for the security minded with built-in blocking of ads, trackers and third party cookies, which also makes it pretty fast. It has a built in version of Tor for browsing that is untraceable for all practical purposes. Based on Chrome, it has a wide variety of available extensions.
Orion - a browser developed by the private search engine, Kagi, is also privacy focused, promising zero telemetry and the ability to use either Chrome or Firefox extensions. It claims to block more ads by default than any other browser. It is 100% funded by Kagi users.
Vivaldi - this browser's claim to fame is extensive customization. You can place your browser tabs just about anywhere you want, turn on ad blocking with downloading an extension, and enjoy end-to-end encryption of your synced data. I am currently giving it a try.
I am not going to link to Arc, the favorite of many people over the past couple of years because its parent company recently announced they don't intend to update it any further and weren't all that clear on where they are headed going forward. IMHO, it's a gamble to use Arc with it's steep learning curve and radical differences to the browser paradigm right now.
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Time Machine Diaries

Ask Me Anything - Where (and when) would you go if time travel were real?
Should time travel ever be invented, I think those of us living in 2024 are going to be pretty safe from being visited from the future. No one is ever going to look at this era and think, "Man, I'll bet that was a fun time to be alive!" Nope, they're going to look at this version of America and want to stay as far away from it as possible. In fact, other than the night that Obama won the election in 2008, most of the truly memorable moments of this entire century to date have been horrible, starting with the botched election in 2000 and then 9/11 the following year. Follow that up with war and the financial crisis and year after year of Donald John Trump and you don't get a time traveler Disneyland.
If I could travel in time, I'd be content just to see of the 20th centuries greatest hits. I think I'd enjoy going to one of the monumental concerts from the decade of my birth, the 1960s. Of course, Woodstock is the first thing to pop into my mind, but it was pretty wet and muddy for a good portion of the time, so I'd probably choose the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 so I could see acts like The Animals and Simon and Garfunkel and get to watch Jimi Hendrix literally light his guitar on fire. I'd definitely go to Liverpool, England in the early 60s to watch the Beatles play at the Cavern Club before they got famous.
I would go to the March On Washington in 1963 and watch Dr. King give that speech on the very spot where the 2013 version of me later got married, right on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I'd like to go down to Mississippi after the Civil Rights Acts was passed and watch Fannie Lou Hamer vote for the first time. I'd definitely spend some time on college campuses, probably at places like Berkley and Columbia, to see the student movement in action. I'd go to the airport in San Francisco and buy beers for the GIs coming home from Vietnam. I'd verify that the right wing myth of spitting protesters is indeed a lie.
Then I'd probably get back in the time machine and go back to the 50s, just so I could go to Yankee Stadium on October 8, 1956, to see Don Larsen pitch a perfect game in the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. I'd get good seats behind home plates, and I'd be ready to watch Yogi Berra jump into Larsen's arms after the final out. There's not much else I'd want to see of the 50s, except maybe the look on Rosa Park's face when she got out of jail for not giving up that bus seat. She is one of my heroes.
Going back to the 40s, I'd attend the funeral of FDR. If ever there was a right man at the right time for a job, it was him. He guided the US through the great depression and then straight into World War Two where he assembled a staff and alliances that resulted in a victory over fascism. I know he had faults. We all do, but he was a giant and there is a lot to admire there. I'd probably listen to a couple of Churchill's speeches in the House of Commons too. I'd love to be there to hear him say "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!” He's another flawed guy, but he did the job when Great Britain needed him.
The 30s were pretty rough, but there were still some things worth seeing. I'd go right to the heart of Nazi Germany and the 1936 Olympic Games just to see Jesse Owens destroy the myth of Aryan superiority as he defeated the master race and won four gold medals in sprinting and the long jump. I'd laugh as Hitler rushed out of the stadium to avoid shaking his hand, and I'd smile as Owens mounted the podium to the sounds of the Star Spangled Banner playing for all the Nazis to enjoy. I'd also do whatever I had to do to find Woodie Guthrie and listen to him sing his songs, even if I had to make my way into a hobo jungle in the rail yards.
I don't know a lot about the first two decades of the last century. I think I'd like to see that total badass named Teddy Roosevelt, the day he gave a campaign speech after being shot in the chest and before going to the hospital. Furthermore, I'd like to see big Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, defend his title. If I wouldn't stand out too much, I'd go to New York City in 1919 to watch the World War One victory parade to see the Harlem Hellcats return from France. I'd also hang out at the polls to watch women come to vote after the passage of the 19th amendment.
Finally, I'd zip forward to other moments. I want to be on the White House lawn in 1974 to watch Richard Nixon get on the helicopter after resigning the presidency after members of his own party told him they would no longer support him because of his crimes, showing that people like Barry Goldwater had more morals than today's Republicans. Finally, I'd go to the Dakota apartment building on December 8, 1980, to try and stop Mark David Chapman from killing John Lennon. That would change the future, certainly, but only for the better.
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Raycast New Notes Feature Available Now
One of the most popular features in Raycast, the extensible keyboard
launcher, has been its floating notes feature. Using a quick keyboard
shortcut, users have been able to summon a window into which they could
type or paste information. Hiding the note and bringing it back was
easy, but there wasn't a lot more to it than that. With the recent
release of Raycast notes in version 1.8.5, floating notes have been
replaced with a new feature.
Raycast notes now support markdown. If you know the syntax, great. If not, the notes window has a toolbar where you can select bold, italic, bullets and so on. It also has "inline code and code blocks, lists that you can indent and reorder, checklists, links and more."
Raycast users without the pro plan can have up to five notes, while pro members get an unlimited number. There are built-in commands for New Notes and Search Notes. If you use the commands frequently, then, like any other command in Raycast, you can assign a hot key to them.
The action pane (⌘+K)l for the Raycast notes command has several choices:
- New note
- Browser notes
- Copy note deep link
- Create Quick link
- Format
- Disable window auto-resizing
- Export (HTML, Markdown, Plain text)
- Recently deleted notes
- Delete
Quick links allow you to open a note with a single keystroke. The notes window may be moved anywhere on the screen. It will stay on top until dismissed.
Don't Read Articles on How to Be Good at Social Media

A quick search for advice on how to post on social media will turn up plenty of listicles. Each one has a few good tips on being yourself and keeping your profile updated, but they also tend to veer into subjects like "building your personal brand," using AI to "help" you and using scheduling software to help you "maximize your engagement." I get some of that if you're marketing your lawn care service or jewelry shop on Etsy, but not if you are seeking community with fellow travelers in the 21st century.
My reasoning for engaging is social media is two-fold. I like keeping up with my family and IRL friends, which is why I am still on Facebook despite its evil influence. I also like meeting interesting and like-minded people who are into the things I enjoy, blogging, tech and furthering progressive ideas. I normally follow people back who follow me. I look at people with skewed ratios of followers as being maybe a little full of themselves sometimes, but it's not really any of my business. I like conversations and learning about folks more than meaningless Internet points.
Read stuff like this
- 10 Effective Tactics to Defeat Internet Trolls
- How to Handle Toxic People on Social Media: 13 Steps
- How to Stop Getting Into Pointless Arguments Online | WIRED
Don't read stuff like this
- 10 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media | Digital Marketing Institute
- 12 Easy Steps To Build Your Personal Brand On Social Media
- 5 tricks for building your personal brand via social media | Bryant News
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News Sources That Don’t Suck
As coporate media continues to abdicate its responsibility to call the sky blue, it would serve us well to seek out and support news sources with a track record of speaking truth to power. Here are some suggestions
Daily Kos
Media Matters for America
OptOut News
The Nation
Raw Story
Crooks & Liars
Crooked Media
Truthout
SiriusXM Progress
Talking Points Memo
Zeteo
The Majority Report
Popular Information
Public Notice
Mother Jones
The Barbed Wire
Heartland Signal
Defector
ProPublica
Has Someone Had a Profound Impact on You from AMA

Today's question comes from the November Indy Web Carnival - "Has someone had a profound impact on you?"
My transition from a person who viewed the world as something that just happens around us to a person who sees the world as a place that is ours to change came about under the tutelage of a unique man whose life story is unlike anyone I've ever met. I became interested in a local group formed to oppose the death penalty. Even when I was an uninformed, apolitical prison guard, I knew at a deep level that state-sanctioned killing was wrong. Even though I'm not religious and the name of the group was People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, I decided to attend. That's where I met the most revolutionary man with whom I've ever been associated, a man with the unlikely name of Chip Smith.
Chip was from Philadelphia's main line. His father had been a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company and ended up a wealthy man. Chip was nearly 70 when I met him, and he still had a trust fund left to him by his father, but he was hardly typical of that breed. In the '60s, while the war in Vietnam was raging, Chip had gone to work for the Agency for International Development in Laos, living among the American community there, rife with CIA agents and other clandestine operatives. When he returned to the United States, he fell into the radical left movement and stayed there for the rest of his life.
American communist and socialist organizations have Byzantine family trees. Groups continually split over differences in political philosophy and tactics. I can't describe every group Chip was a member of, but in 1979 he was a part of the People's Viewpoint organization, composed mostly of educated professionals who went to work alongside the working class to organize them into what would hopefully become a revolutionary movement. Despite having a doctorate in economics and that trust fund I mentioned, Chip went to work in a steel mill and became a shop steward in the union. His wife, an actual neurosurgeon by trade, went to work in a garment factory. The organizing of the People's Viewpoint organization came to a bloody end in November 1979 when a rally they organized in a Greensboro, NC housing project was attacked by the KKK in an ambush the police knew was going to happen and did nothing to stop. Five people were killed.
Chip's wife went back to work in the hospital, but Chip kept on working towards revolutionary changes in the U.S. By the late '90s, the organization he was a member of in Philly had a plan for members to move to the U.S. South to organize. Despite the bloody history that had touched their lives, Chip and his wife moved to NC. His plan was to join local progressive groups, assist them in their mission, and help them grow. He successfully mentored us into actually getting the city council of our city to endorse a death penalty moratorium in a campaign that succeeded. NC hasn't had an execution in 17 years.
When 9/11 happened and the U.S. government went to war, Chip used his extensive contacts to help the little peace group we organized do things like help military resisters, hold giant demonstrations, and direct military families towards others like them against the war.
On a personal level, he taught me so much. I learned about the history of the Palestinian people from Chip. I had no experience with organized labor or unions, being from the least unionized state in the country. Chip taught me what they've done for workers and why they are needed. Chip patiently taught me about the societal cost of white privilege. In fact, he wrote a book about it. Chip taught me about the importance of inclusion, about how as two white guys, we should work towards building organizations that valued women and people of color. I spent many, many hours riding around the state in Chip's old van, going to meetings at labor councils and organizations like Black Workers for Justice. He never talked all that much, but everyone knew him and respected him.
He wasn't just a political mentor either. When I was struggling to get sober, Chip and his wife were there for me, kind of like loving but very disapproving village elders urging me to do better. Eventually, his wife took a position in a hospital a couple of hours away, and they moved. Of course, he immediately identified the issues most pressing to the workers in that area, joined a local organization to help them out, and worked with them until he died a few years later, dedicated until the very end to making a better world with other people.
When making decisions, I often ask myself what Chip would do in my situation. He never got too bent out of shape about the news of the day, viewing the struggle for revolutionary change to be a long and slow, but constant, process. In these trying times, I do my best to emulate that thought process. I believe in my heart of hearts that people, organized together towards a common goal, have immense power. I learned that from Chip Smith.
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Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility
If you are into Mac automation, you have probably invested in
tools like Keyboard
Maestro or Shortery
which let you launch apps, run scripts, display messages and open
documents using certain triggers. If you are new to the platform or
don't want to make the investment in a paid program right now, there is
a simple and easy to use app for you. Scheduler for Mac can do all the
tasks outlined above. It can run AppleScript, shell scripts and python
scripts. Scripts can be run as root. Here are a few real world examples
of how I use scheduling:
- Open my web browser to my job's time clock web page four times a day to clock in and out for the day and for lunch
- Run an AppleScript right before I get up in the morning to eject my backup drive so that all I have to do is unplug it
- Run an AppleScript every night to move items in Things 3 to a new date and time
- Launch a file synchronization app every night to sync my Obsidian vault to Google Drive
- Open and close an app on my work and home machines at alternating times because I don't want it running on them simultaneously
- Launch a set of documents I use all day every day at work five minutes after I log in.
The interface for Scheduler is straightforward and easy to use. You'll have no problem configuring any of the events. You can even group events together to run at the same time. Any event can be run on a schedule or set to the same time on specified days. You can toggle events on and off, for example, if you don't want them to run when you are on vacation. One of the conditions for setting up a script allows it to be run after a specific period of inactivity. You could use this to quit your open apps and log you off in case you forget to. The option to display messages can be used as an alarm clock.
Another powerful feature of Scheduler is the ability to assign hotkeys to events. Using this you can launch apps, open websites and documents and run scripts right from the keyboard. You can even launch them from the Mac menu bar, which is a convenient way to do things like refresh Finder or restart your dock after making changes. You could even update your Homebrew apps that way.
The preferences and option for Scheduler allow you to sync or back up your settings to iCloud. You can also sync events to any iCloud calendar you grant Scheduler access to. Scheduler was released in 1998. The most recent release was last year. It is currently on version 7. It's freeware but requires you to register it after 30 days of use.
Coping Strategies for When You Are Feeling Down

Lots of us are feeling down and sad today for pretty good reasons. There's something to be said for feeling your feelings and processing grief, but prolonged feelings of sadness produce cortisol and are physically, not to mention mentally, bad for you. Plenty of folks can have a couple of drinks or burn one and relieve a little pressure but that isn't an alternative for the recovering community or other abstainers. I thought I'd do some public service and research a few techniques on lifting your mood. Here you go.
- Treat yourself with kindness
- Prioritize physical activity
- Spend time in nature
- Get plenty of sleep
- Take a break
- Enjoy nutrient-rich foods
- Engage in mindfulness practice
- Express your feelings
- Learn What you need
- Seek out new experiences
How to Cheer Yourself Up On a Hard Day, According to Science
What to Do When You’re Sad: 11 Tips to Feel Better
How to Cope with Losing | Psychology Today
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Dockside - A New Shelf Utility
There is a new player in the category of apps that includes Yoink, Dropover
and Dropshelf.
Dockside, from Hachipoo
Apps is a shelf utility that uses the space on either side of your dock
(if you position it on the bottom of your monitor). For those of use who
position our docks on the left or right sides of the screen, Dockside
places a couple of landing places at the bottom of the display, hidden
until you need them.
Dockside creates a shelf for your Downloads folder and the default location you have designated for screenshots. In addition, you specify a file location of your choosing for files you drag into Dockside. Once files are placed on a Dockside shelf, there are a variety of Finder actions you can take:
- Open
- Open with
- Share
- Get info
- Show in Finder
- Copy Path name
- Rename
- Copy
- Copy to...
- Move to...
- Move to trash
Additionally, depending on the type of object on the shelf, you can:
- Compress
- Remove image metadata
- Extract text from images
- Optimize image size (if you have Clop installed
Other features include the ability to create a quick note with your default text editor on the shelf and the ability to paste content onto a shelf. Any item placed on a shelf that has Quicklook capability is viewable via that mechanism. Dockside also maintains a recent files history in its interface.
Dockside is an Apple notarized app that can operate offline since it has no external server connection and collects no data on users. There is a two-week free trial and the app can be purchased for $5.99 on the developer's website.
Stream of Lou-ishness

I tried to keep my mind occupied all day with something other than hope versus awful possibilities. Spent a great deal of time trying to turn a 30 second task into a 15 second task by automating what happens when I download pictures on my computer. I looked for a new program to test so that I could write a review. I did not have the energy or desire to get far from my desk. I did absolutely zero doomscrolling of the news. I didn't read a single article about the cloud hanging over America.
After lunch, I decided what I really wanted to do was just quit my job. I've already retired once, didn't like it so I returned to the workforce. I was looking for something to blame for my malaise today and instead of assigning that blame to existential dread, I figured it just had to be the low pressure, easy job I lucked into. Yep, that's it. I started emailing Wonder Woman all the reasons I wanted to quit. To her everlasting credit, she let me rant and didn't freak out. In the end, I didn't put in my notice, but I didn't feel better either.
I don't want to go to sleep because I'm scared of what will be on my phone when I wake up. I mean what if the worst happens? I have no idea what I will do. For a long time I thought I would just withdraw into my hobbies, delete all the news apps from my devices and become apolitical, finding some way to not feel guilty for the fifty million tons of privilege that would allow me to do that. I know better. I've been reading the news without pause since the days of Watergate. I would not know how to stop.
My entire early adulthood was taken up by 12 straight years of Reagan/Bush. The thought of my dotage being taken up by something worse is horrifying. If old, straight, white guys are feeling this way tonight, what must the politically aware POC, women and LGBT citizens of America be feeling?
Is this incoherent? I don't feel like I have the words to express my anxiety, my anger and my confusion. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm so angry at the people who encouraged this, who allowed it to happen and who stand to benefit from it. I want someone to pay.\
I'm not a control freak. Most of the time I hold my chin up and deal. Like everyone else in the world, I've survived everything that has ever happened to me. I'll survive the next week and the next four years, no matter what. Right? Right?
Someone asked me to write a blog post on whether I have faith in the future of humanity and I have been putting THAT off until after tonight because whatever happens today is really going to color my answer. That's overblown and over dramatic but it is also true. All we need is more air and water pollution and drill, baby, drill and "I'm not a scientist" types. I just want to scream profanity.
America is a mental ward tonight and there aren't any doctors available.
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Dealing With a Toxic Boss

Have you ever had to work for someone you just couldn't respect? Have you watched your colleagues leaving one by one as you trudged through hell on earth at work? Ever worked for a hypocrite? An ass-kisser? If you can answer any of these questions in the affirmative, and I can, then you know what it brings up all kinds of emotions. When you are forced into coping with what should be unacceptable behavior, it kills your self-esteem and ends up affecting all areas of your life. In hindsight, you wonder why you put up with it.
I had a boss one time who drove by my house on his way to work but wouldn't give me a ride to when I got hit by a reckless driver and totaled my car.
I had a boss who never, ever, not once worked a 40-hour work week.
I had a boss who bought 7000 laptops that were so unsuited for their purpose that they went into a dumpster a year later.
If you are in the bad boss club, take a look at some of the survival tips in these links.
8 Toxic Boss Signs and How to Deal With Them | The Muse
How to Handle a Toxic Boss | Careers | U.S. News
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AMA - What advice would you give someone graduating from high school?

The question is from Brandon - What advice would you give someone graduating from high school?
This question is a cross between what it says and what I'd like a chance to do if I were 18 all over again. It would be cool to have nearly 60 years of accumulated knowledge crammed into an 18-year old head. Let's go.
Yep, go to college
All the people out there making noise about how college isn't for everyone and that becoming a plumber or joining the army are good solid alternatives, you know the ones I'm talking about, those people are anti-education conservatives who went to college themselves and who plan on sending their children. They are trying to cover for the inability or unwillingness to make education affordable to the masses like the social democracies in Europe do—the countries that aren't sending half their tax revenues to defense contractors. People who go to college make more money, have longer life expectancies, and are happier than the people who don't go.
DO NOT JOIN THE MILITARY!!!
I am a vet and I do not hate the military, but it is not a job program, nor is it safe if you happen to be female. One out of three people who enlist do not finish their service with an honorable discharge. The usual pattern for that segment of enlistees is a general discharge for some sort of misconduct, health issues, weight issues, or incompatibility with military life. For those who don't complete their enlistment, all of the wonderful benefits described by their recruiters are no longer attainable, including the educational benefits.
Exercise and Eat Right Starting Now
Don't wait until you get out of shape to start exercising. Make going for a walk or run and going to the gym a habit starting right now. Just get used to the idea that you need 30 minutes to an hour each day to take care of your body. I'm not telling you that you can't eat pizza. I'm saying don't eat a whole pizza. Also, if you never worry about your alcohol consumption, then you are doing it right. If you do worry about it, that's a very good sign that drinking is not right for you. Weed probably isn't a better alternative. You need to get used to getting high on life.
Start Practicing Gratitude
Every day for the rest of your life, take a minute and write down three things you are grateful for. Your list doesn't have to be deep and philosophical. Did you find a good parking space today? Write that down! Did someone treat you nicely today? Write it down! Make it a habit to be continually on the lookout for things to be grateful for. It will do more for your outlook on life than anything else I can think of.
Vote Democrat
The Republican Party is a front for the top 1% of Americans on the wealth scale. They've discovered things that fire up white people and made that what they pretend to represent, but what they are really about is maintaining a system in this country where the richest people get richer and the rest of us fight over the scraps. I'm not saying that the Democrats are perfect because they are not, but they do not preach white supremacy, the subjugation of women, and the perpetuation of the war machine above all other government functions like the Republicans do.
Avoid Debt as Much as Possible
Go to a state-supported school, preferably one that has reduced tuition. Start a habit of saving money from your very first paycheck. When you want something, start saving for it instead of borrowing money. There is a huge difference between what you need and what you want. Internalize that fact and let it guide your spending habits. You may want a fancy car, but what you need is reliable transportation. You may want a big screen TV in your dorm room, but all you need is the laptop you use for school.
Miscellaneous Advice
Use protection. Kids are great and I love mine, but unplanned pregnancies change your life.
Wear sunscreen. Kurt Vonnegut was smart AF and he said that so I am going with it.
Stay close to your family. If you've made it this far without too much trauma, that's awesome. Family is the best mutual aid society ever developed.
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Three Free Apps for Text and Writing
If you are a writer or just like words, the chances are you find
Apple's built-in Dictionary app a little lacking. There are websites
that offer advanced functionality, but you have to be online to use
them. There are a few free tools that can help you out.
Nisus Thesaurus
From the developers of Nisus writer, this free thesaurus app, integrates with Apple's services menu to allow use in just about any application where you can enter text. Just highlight the word, "and choose Nisus Thesaurus from the Services menu. When you select a word in Nisus Thesaurus, the synonyms for that word will be shown right next to it in the Word Browser. Go from "sky" to "cumulonimbus" in just a few clicks."
Megawords
For crossword puzzle fans, poets and songwriters, Megawords from developer Frank O'Dwyer is a powerful stand alone app available in the Mac App Store. It's features include:
- rhyme search (works offline)
- wildcard search (crossword solver mode, works offline)
- dictionary lookup of word meanings (multiple dictionaries, online only)
- thesaurus lookup (online only)
- search SOWPODS or TWL or both (Scrabble dictionaries)
Esse
Esse from Ameba Labs offers 61 different text manipulations across eight different categories, similar to Word Service from Devon Technologies or the paid app, Text Workflow. You can do things like:
- All sorts of case changes (ALL CAPS, lowercase, CaMeL, snake_case, etc.)
- Word counts (including unique word counts and text statistics)
- Encoding
- Add/remove/convert line breaks
- Fix/convert quotes
- Extract dates, addresses, dates, emails, phone numbers
- JSON tools
- Line removal options
- Strip non-alpha-numeric characters
There is also an iOS version.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, A Magical Place to Visit

One of my Internet friends is lucky enough to be going to New Mexico on business this week. Saturday he's heading up to Santa Fe and that makes him a lucky man. My wife and I spent a week's vacation there a while back and it was fantastic. There are so many great places to eat, hike, ride bikes and make day trips to. If you are into art, there are plenty of museums and galleries to captivate you.
Here are a few places I can recommend from personal experience.
Hikes
Chamisa Trail - in Santa Fe is a beautiful hiking trail that offers stunning views of the surrounding landscape. It is a popular destination for both locals and tourists looking to explore the outdoors. You can find more information about Chamisa Trail in Santa Fe by visiting this website: Chamisa Trail Santa Fe.
Armijo Trail - Explore this 4.7-mile loop trail near Cedar Crest, New Mexico. Generally considered a moderately challenging route, it takes an average of 2 h 11 min to complete. This is a very popular area for hiking and horseback riding, so you'll likely encounter other people while exploring.
Restaurants
The Shed - Located in a building dating back the the 1660s - We offer locals and visitors alike a time tested taste of the best that Northern New Mexico has to offer both in cuisine and hospitality. We are a family owned and operated business now under the management of the 3rd generation of Carswells. Visitors and locals returning to Santa Fe don't feel like they have arrived in Santa Fe until they have tasted the Shed chile once again.
Bumble Bee's Baja Grill- Great vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options along with organically raised meats. "When we say the “freshest of ingredients” we mean that all our meats are freshly grilled to include a fine selection of skirt steak, natural New Mexico lamb, Mahi-mahi from off the coast of South America, farm raised shrimp, skinless chicken breasts and tender pork carnitas which are braised and slow-cooked in special spices. We also prepare whole natural chickens that are marinated with our secret recipe and roasted on an imported French rotisserie. Fresh vegetables and fruits are brought in daily to prepare the savory garnish and fillings that adorn many of the selections."
Drive
The High Road to Taos - This route takes the traveler through an authentic remnant of Old Spain, still evident in the religion, architecture, topography, history, and people along the route.
The byway travels through Chimayo, a community known for the beautiful Santuario de Chimayo and the El Posito, a hole in the floor of a side chapel filled with healing earth. Along N.M. 76, the byway follows through the creased and crinkled badlands, polka-dotted with scrubby piñon and juniper, with the Jemez Mountains enormous on the horizon.
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A Trip That Changed Me from Ask Me Anything

My Internet friend, R. Scott Jones, asked - What's one place you've traveled to (or perhaps an entire trip) that changed you? Tell us how you changed because of it, and why you think it inspired that change.
I've lived for all but a very short period of my adult life in the same southern military town where I went to high school. Most of my vacations have been to the beaches or mountains of the same state I live in. My military service took me to places like Texas and California, but never out of the United States. Then, over a period of three years during the beginning stages of the US war in Iraq, I became a traveling fool. My activism against that war took me to college campuses and demonstrations all over the US and Europe.
The way that happened was a matter of luck, politics, and maybe a tad bit of exploitation. I learned a lot about group dynamics, organizing, and the far left as it exists in the United States. I was a member of a tiny little community group in Fayetteville, NC, protesting the death penalty and other social justice issues. Then 9/11 happened, and George Bush and Co. decided to attack Iraq because 19 Saudi Arabians attacked the US. My son was in basic training in the Navy on 9/11 and was on the way to report to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower after completing Navy Nuclear Training when the first bombs fell on Baghdad. He was home on leave and went to a demonstration against the war and held a sign that said "No Blood for Oil." He was interviewed by an AP reporter. When he reported to the ship, he was brought up on charges and convicted. It was bullshit because even members of the military have free speech when they are off duty, out of uniform, and not purporting to represent the government. Thousands of GIs did it during the Vietnam War.
I was pissed about the way he was treated and told the story at a small gathering of activists I attended. In attendance was an instructor from the University of NC-Greensboro who was a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO). He led the student group there and had ties with the national headquarters in Chicago. He approached me and asked if I would mind coming to his school to speak, and I agreed. I didn't know that I was being auditioned. When I spoke at the school, members of the national cadre were there, and they liked what I had to say and how I said it. Before I knew it, speaking invitations started pouring in. I was eager to represent Military Families Speak Out, a national organization I was trying to organize for, so I went to every place I was invited.
They asked me if I wanted to go to Paris to speak at the World Socialism Conference on an anti-war panel, and I agreed. I didn't even have a passport and had to hustle to get one. I was there for nine days. My roommate was a man named Shuja Graham, a former Black Panther given the death penalty for the death of a correctional officer in a prison riot, later exonerated, as he was not actually involved in the murder. I'm a former prison guard myself, but Shuja and I got along just fine. I met leftists from all over the world and started to see some of the nitpicking differences for which that strain of politics is known.
I didn't do much classic tourism, other than visiting Notre Dame and the Seine one afternoon. I spent much time talking politics and drinking. I went to a demonstration organized by the French League of Communist Revolutionaries and bought a Palestinian scarf from the Italian Communist Party, whom I later learned were Stalinists. My hosts, the ISO, were Trots, disciples of Leon Trotsky, an early Communist thought leader assassinated on Stalin's orders. Most of my far-left-leaning political friends back home belonged to an organization associated with Maoism.
When I returned home, I continued to speak out and travel, eventually going to Italy and Great Britain on ISO-sponsored trips. As the anti-war movement grew, some activists got lots of press, like Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who gained fame for camping out in a ditch outside of Bush's Texas ranch. Another became known for appearing in Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 911. GI resistors started getting attention and invitations to speak. People organizing against the war competed to see which well-known person they could get to come to their demos. Factions developed. It was distasteful. The ISO cadre, whom I had come to look upon as my friends, suddenly wanted to dictate to me where I could and could not speak, depending on the politics of the organizers. I was outraged because I was on one team, Team Stop the War. That was my goal. I wasn't trying to grow anyone's membership or advance some nuanced understanding of far-left politics. I just wanted for kids like my son to quit being sent to die in Iraq.
Although I remained very much against US policy, I made the abrupt decision to quit traveling and speaking after making one last trip to Atlanta for an event that had nothing to do with any political group. Thereafter, I attended meetings of the same hometown organization I started with and went to our tiny demos happily. My adventures on the national and international stage were enlightening, and I got to meet a lot of military families and hopefully discourage a few young people from joining up. My adventures with the ISO, of which I must stress, I was never a member, were enlightening, if for nothing else, to see a small slice of American culture that most people never experience.
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Mail Archiver X - Give It a Pass
I bought Mail Archiver X
by Moth Software at a discount from Bundlehunt a few months back and
didn't have to pay the full $49.95 they charge on their website. My
intention was to keep a regularly updated archive of my 19-year-old
Gmail account containing 155K messages. I also wanted to retrieve a
Yahoo account that I use solely for newsletters.
I knew beforehand that it's extremely easy to use Google Takeout to download an archive of your email in the universally recognized mbox format because I've done it several times. My Gmail archive weighs in at about 8GBs. You don't get a lot of choices when you request the archive, though. You get it all from the beginning of time. I wanted one to import into Eagle Filer so that I could have offline access to all the receipts, registration information and other things I'd received via email since 2005. Google Takeout did the trick.
With Mail Archiver X you can filter the emails you choose to archive, a feature I wanted. Unfortunately, despite supposedly being able to add files to an archive and cumulatively grow it over time, I was never able to get that function to work. Either the program insisted on downloading an entire archive each time it ran, taking hours, or it only downloaded files since the last time I ran it, but in a new file, so that I could not search my entire account at one time. Their tech support answered my emails, but not with helpful information. The company is in the US and the person who answered my email did not appear to a native English speaker. At present, support is no longer free. They have a $70 fee.
The other thing about the app I don't care for is its size. It's over half a GB. That's just the program, not the archives it creates. I would never recommend this program to anyone.
Can Any Here Be Objective?

I am one link in a chain of military service stretching over four generations. I didn't go to war, as the period between 1983 and 1989 lacked one to send me to. They only needed a few guys for the invasions of Grenada and Panama, and I wasn't one of them. I've lived in military towns for most of my life. I'm also a committed progressive, somewhat to the left of almost everybody you probably know. I've learned over the years that no one on either side of the political spectrum has an objective view of the people who actually serve in the military. People on the right insist that they are all heroes fighting for our freedom, even the truck mechanics who spent four years in the motor pool at Ft. Hood and got out. People on the left vacillate between calling them victims of the war machine and mercenaries, depending on which ones they are talking about.
Practically the only folks who have an objective view of who soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are, are those men and women themselves. Here's what one of my friends, a former special operations soldier (Green Beret) said about himself and his fellows on why or why not military service makes you more American than other people.
They volunteered to be there, they get compensated for their time just like any other person that works any other salaried job, they have employment benefits rarely seen outside silicon valley and wall street, they travel the world, have the opportunity to pursue degrees at no cost, and the majority of their day is spent just sitting around waiting to go home. Once they leave service, if they have long-term effects from service they will be compensated for those for the rest of their life tax free, have access to healthcare for reduced cost, reduced cost life insurance, access to programs and services that allow them to build business, buy homes, and send their children to school with no money out of pocket, and will be able to tell outlandish stories with little ability to be fact checked even in our social media obsessed culture. BUT, they are more American because they do something that you feel guilty for not doing yourself. Like the garbage collectors, the police, firefighters, teachers, janitors, landscapers, painters, carpenters, roofers, plumbers, teachers, nurses, etc…
Military Life | The Point Magazine
What is something that civilians don't realize about the military and its members? - Quora
Public, Veterans Agree: Most Americans Don’t Understand Military Life | Pew Research Center
Defense Finance and Accounting Service > MilitaryMembers > payentitlements > Pay Tables
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This Weeks Bookmarks - Latest Apple Updates Explained, Mac History, Willie Nelson's New Album, GTD by Being Nice, Best New Books, Rare Horses

Apple Intelligence Arrives in macOS 15.1 Sequoia, iOS 18.1, and iPadOS 18.1 - TidBITS - This is what you get if you upgrade your iPhone or Mac to the latest version.
A brief history of Mac firmware – The Eclectic Light Company
All About Willie Nelson’s 153rd Album, ‘Last Leaf on the Tree’
Getting Stuff Done By Not Being Mean to Yourself - The Open Heart Project
How Two of the Rarest Horses on Earth Got Lost - The New York Times
I'm An Expert on Relationships, LOL

The November Ask Me Anything blogging challenge is going well. Today's question is once again from @annie@social.lol on Mastodon. She wants to know, "What's an important lesson you've learned about relationships?" As a happily married guy, albeit in marriage number four, I feel fully qualified to share my expertise on this one. Anyway, relationships also include friends, work, and more.
High School Sweethearts
I got married the first time to my high school sweetheart. I was 18, she was 17. We already had a baby and had another one pretty quickly to boot. Today, all four of us are doing OK. Getting an early start on children made me a young grandparent able to do plenty of stuff with my huge collection (13) of descendants. Although the marriage didn't last long (three years), it did not ruin my life in any appreciable way.
Don't Marry Someone You Meet in Rehab
I don't really need to explain this one, do I? Also, ten-year age gaps create certain realities, many of them not positive. 1/10 Would not recommend!
Even Good Relationships Can Wither
I think it's fine, healthy even, to have interests and hobbies different than those of your partner, but interests and hobbies need to take second place in a marriage. The most important thing in a marriage is the other person in it. Taking them for granted or assuming that all the hard work is in the past is unwise. That's all I have to say about that.
Good Relationships Have Requirements
It is quite possible to be true to yourself and also put your partner's needs at the top of your list. My relationship with Wonder Woman works because I have respect for her needs. I know what things are important to her, and I accept that without argument. She does the same for me. She kind of had to train me, and I had to allow myself to be trained. I don't think either one of us has extravagant demands. We have evolved into a couple that spends most of our time together. Most of what we do, we do together. I don't go running with her, but I do go to most of her races. When we are at home, we spend most of the time in the same room, often within an arm's reach of each other. We always kiss goodbye, including before work, at lunch, and before sleeping.
Work is Hit or Miss
In the job I retired from, I made several friends that outlasted my employment. A couple of them have lasted more than 20 years. We've done things socially, been to each other's houses. I've watched them get married and have kids just as they've watched my family grow. I believe in being friendly with the people I work with and finding out about their lives. I had the same boss for many, many years, and the guy was so disinterested in everyone who worked for him. He didn't know anything personal about his employees, and I just marveled at his indifference. Most work relationships don't evolve into friendships, but I think it's important to humanize my co-workers and not see them as cogs in a machine.
Organizations
I'm an outspoken and energetic person. When I'm in a group of people with a common purpose and something needs to be done, I don't mind voicing my opinion about the direction we take, nor do I mind stepping up to do the work. I don't know how to be any other way. The upside to this is lots of people appreciate you. The downside is a lot of people resent you. I don't like being resented, but what I like even less is a group of people staring at each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move.
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Task Til Dawn - A Free Mac Automation App
One of my favorite parts of using a Mac is making use of all the
automation apps, including the built in ones, Automator and Shortcuts.
My productivity would be severely hampered without:
- Apps to Enhance Apple Shortcuts
- Clop for image processing
- Hazel for file management
- Keyboard Maestro for all kinds of stuff ( I have 800 macros)
- Better Touch Tool for Magic Trackpad and more
All of those are paid apps though. If you want a free app (donation ware) to explore the possibilities of automation, try downloading Task Til Dawn by developer Oliver Matuschin. It's an app with a GUI, not a command line. You can trigger actions via events on your computer, or you can schedule them. The program will run from a thumb drive if you need to perform the same task on all the computers in a lab or an office. Tasks are saved as files and can be shared among workstations. Samples include:
- Automatically connect network drives at login
- Automatically print all documents placed in a certain folder
- Automatically copy images when a certain external drive (including thumb drives) is connected
- Open or quit applications on a schedule (I use scheduling to launch a program that syncs my Obsidian vault at 3am, one that ejects my backup drive before I wake up so I can just unplug it and to move screenshots and image files from my daily work to a storage location when I am done for the day)
- Turn off automatic Time Machine backups and run them on a schedule
- Empty the trash on a schedule
- Take screenshots at scheduled intervals
- Display a dialog box (useful for public computers to pass info to users)
- Automate the opening of URLs
There are dozens of other tasks, and they can all be strung together to create a practically endless amount of tasks. As a bonus for cross-platform users. Compatible tasks can be shared between Macs and Windows machines with little alteration. The Windows download is also free.
My Favorite Better Touch Tool Actions
Better Touch Tool, an app from Folivora.ai is one of my favorite automation apps. Here are a few of the shortcuts I use with it.
- ⌘+Q - Runs an Apple Script that prompts “Are you sure you want to close this app”
- shift+shift - opens/closes notification center
- control+control - reveals desktop
- option+option - reveals all Windows
- esc+esc - activate screen saver/lock screen
- fn+e - Raycast emoji picker
- fn+v - Raycast clipboard manager
- four-finger click on MTP - activate screen saver/lock screen
- one finger click on bottom center of MTP - Google search
- three finger tap on MTP - simulate alt+tab
An OG Blogger Who Is Still at It

Jason Kottke began blogging in 1998. In 2005 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award (LOL). In 2024, he's still at it and still getting new subscribers. Although he is a designer by profession, he's made his living through subscriptions to his blog, ad and affiliate income since 2005. A Vermont, resident, Kottke has a world-wide audince, may of them who have followed him for many years.
In a recent discussion among the members of his website at kottke.org he wrote the following introduction, while asking his readers to also introduce themselves.
I'll go first: My name is Jason and I live in VT with my two kids. I'm struggling with the increasing darkness & cold of stick season here in VT and some early-onset empty nesting, but I'm trying to combat it by biking as much as I can before the snow flies. My son and I are watching Devs (a rewatch for me) and I'm listening to Percival Everett's James on audiobook, which is incredible so far. I can be found on Instagram, Threads, and Mastodon, but I'm enjoying Bluesky the most these days.
Kottke's blog is a mix of original writing and his comments on news and feature articles. On the blog's 25th anniversary, Om Malik, noted Silicon Valley write commented:
Kottke, the blog that curates the best of the whimsical and creative web and reflects the eclectic personality of its founder, Jason Kottke, is turning 25.
he never tried to ramp his site up to become a media empire. No venture capitalist money, no clickbait headlines, no pivot to video or other trendy media chimera
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Please Make It Easier!

In the continuation of the Ask Me Anything series, today I am tackling a question from Annie, first answered by Keenan, Estebanxto and Kerri Ann - if you could instantly change one internal pattern/thing about yourself, what would it be?
This is an easy one. I would turn myself into a natural people person on the spot. I'd love to live in a world where relationships were easy for me. I can come across as personable and friendly, and there is a large part of me that truly is that way, but it takes so much effort. I make the effort because I enjoy the rewards and reactions I get from being that person, but my god, it takes so much energy and concentration. Left to my own devices and true nature, I'd silently do my own thing, content to be left alone most of the time.
For a long time in my life, I acted very taciturn, rarely showing much emotion other than irritation. I was pretty gruff. It was all to keep people at a distance because I was so clueless about how to deal with them. I grew up moving once or twice a year, and my first 14 years on planet earth were spent always being the new kid. I didn't know what it felt like to be settled or to have long-term relationships. As an immature new kid, I felt like I always had something to prove, and if it backfired, my natural inclination was to angrily withdraw.
In early adulthood, I dealt with substance abuse and mental health issues, both of which I sought treatment for, and after a myriad of struggles, finally got on top of. When I finally entered long-term sobriety, I realized that I absolutely needed people in order to be healthy, and that's when I decided to drop the gruff, grouchy, grumpy nature that I had always used. I was 43 years old. At work, I adopted the attitude that I would have were I self-employed instead of a civil servant. I really concentrated on being friendly and approachable and started thinking about how other people felt. I was at that job for 20 years, and I'm still friends with people from there. All of them will tell you that I had a mid-career personality change.
In my personal life, I decided to start sharing the things I loved, which at the time were 12-Step meetings and riding my bike. I'd spent the last decade heavily involved in activism, always struggling against the things that made me mad at the world. Bush's wars, Conservative attempts to punish LGBT people, criminal justice inequality and more were things I organized against, but it had taken its toll on me. I stepped away from that and directed my energy into being the guy who was just grateful to be sober another day. When I realized I had a talent for endurance cycling, I became an evangelist about it to people who were interested, constantly talking people into attempting challenging bike rides of greater and greater distances. I met Wonder Woman at one of those rides.
I finally learned how to make small talk. I adopted the role of a nurturer and started trying to make people comfortable, whether it was on a bike ride or at work when I went to help teachers and administrators with various computer problems. It was about this time that my grandchildren started entering the world, and I found that to soften me up a bit as well. I remember explicitly training myself to smile more.
Today my problem is maintaining that friendly persona. It takes a lot of energy and sometimes I run out. "What's the matter Lou? Why are you so quiet?" is something I hear with regularity. There's nothing actually wrong. I just need some time to recharge my batteries and be still. By design, our home is a quiet place. It's relaxing. I have become an extrovert with introverted tendencies.
When I look at people I know who seem to be always on their game, friendly and helpful by nature, I marvel at how they do it. I wonder if it even takes any effort on their part. I have a coworker who can talk to anyone and keep a calm demeanor throughout it all. He rarely complains and is always there to help when asked. Someone recently said that the two of us were alike, and I took it as a great compliment. Maybe I'm getting better at maintaining a friendly outside when my inside isn't feeling it. I hope so. It sure took long enough!
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Scratchpad - Floating Notes But Better
For years, I kept a text editor open on my computer at all times
and when I needed a scratchpad, I would switch to it and type or paste
whatever I needed. Then Raycast
came along with it's floating notes feature, which is nice. It can be
summoned with a hot key. Then I found Scrap Paper,
which can also be called with a hotkey, syncs between computers and has
an iOS version. You can hide the icon in the menu bar if you just want
to use the hotkey. Furthermore, you can have the text window stay on top
of all other windows, which is a feature I want. Finally, I saw Scratchpad
on r/MacApps and I
thought I'd give it a try. It has everything Scrap Paper has, but can
also be launched from the dock. It adds
- Automatically creating clickable links from pasted URLS
- Control over font selection
- Text size adjustment
- Line spacing
- Smart quotes
- Smart Dashes
- Translucent background
Because it's text, you get access to the writing tools, spelling and grammar, substitutions, speech and the Mac Services menu. One awesome feature is the ability to use Quicklook on a link, which opens a small window with a live view of the web page, similar to the Little Arc feature in the Arc browser.
Scratchpad offers scripting and shortcuts support. You can enter text onto Scratchpad from any app that can open a URL.
There is a fully functional free trial of the macOS app available here. The only limitation is a reminder to buy the app every 12 hours, and no automatic updates. All data and settings carry over if you buy it on the App Store.
Scratchpad is available in the Mac App Store for $5. It's by well-known Indy developer Sindre Sorhus.
Writers from The First Day of Weblog Posting Month - Ask Me Anything

Today bloggers across the IndyWeb started doing AMAs with questions from a variety of sources. Here are the writers I found with tagged Mastodon posts.
I remember every mean thing anyone ever said to me - By Keenan answering "If you could instantly change one internal pattern or thing, what would it be?"
Kicking Off Ask Me Anything for the November Challenges | Living Out Loud - Yours truly answering "Why do you have the politics you do?"
😣 Perfectionism is Exhausting | And So It Goes… - Kerri Ann answering the same question as Keenan (above).
Writing Month #1: Things I Was Wrong About – Matt’s Weird Little Garden - Matt answering "What have you been wrong about?"
What do I do for work, and drink? - [Gabz/mL] gabz answering "1) I would actually love to read about your work (genetics? agriculture?) but I'm not sure how to phrase the question other than "So what do you do for work exactly?" but maybe more like what's something you really like about your job? (or hate) or what's your typical workday like? and 2) what's your favorite brand and/or flavor(s) of fizzy water? I am a fizzy water drinker till I die."
If you could instantly change one internal pattern/thing about yourself, what would it be? - Ask Me Anything Challenge #WeblogPoMoAMA | A wannabe blog Estebantxo answering the same question as Keenan and Kerri Ann (above).
Musing with the Magpie · Writing Month Day 1 Magpie answering "What are you doing to prepare for the coming winter?"
WeblogPoMo AMA #1: Work And Drink | Leon Mika - Leon Answering the same questions as gabz
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Kicking Off Ask Me Anything for the November Challenges

Question: Why do you have the politics you have today?
In real life, outside of my family and a couple of close friends, I rarely talk politics unless someone says something real backwards around me, in which case I speak up. I consider any endorsement of what passes for Republican policy to be backwards, so I'm not going to let anyone subject me to it. I don't go around preaching to anyone and all I want is the same treatment.
That's the root of my politics right there. It's the golden rule. I want to live in a society where people treat other people the way they want to be treated. Republicans want a two tiered system where there is a definite advantage given to white, native born people. They want to explain away the disparity in educational achievement and the rates of incarceration by acting like minorities are stupid criminals instead of using our joint national resources to bring about a better system. If I were poor (again) I'd want to be treated with compassion, not scorn.
Conservatives want a government that puts more money in their pocket and screw everybody who isn't like them. I want a government that provides for the common good. don't believe in a government that foster's an elite class who get to skip paying taxes on their yachts and jets. I think that the effective tax rate for people who live off accumulated generational wealth should be at least as much as the people who clean their houses.
In order to have the kind of country I want, the insane amount of money that gets funneled to defense corporations has to be drastically reduced. Our government has a vested interest in keeping people scared of terrorists, the Chinese, the Russians, Mexican drug lords. None of the money spent towards combatting that lengthens lives the way it would if it were spent on cancer research and improved medical care for everyone.
I want to live in a country with educated people because I believe education to be important. I worked in schools for decades and I know how dedicated teachers are. Republicans have fostered a narrative that schools are failing and it isn't true. They use any excuse to avoid spending money on education, preferring to give tax cuts to those who already have the most money. They want to give money to private schools that allow non-certified teachers to tell children that men and dinosaurs walked the earth together.
I believe in science. Only a fool would look at the rapidly changing climate and think the best thing to do is drill more oil wells, but that is the policy Republicans want. I want to drink clean water and breath clean air and I don't want to be told how spending the money for those basic life giving necessities sin't good for the balance sheet of some billionaire.
So there you have it. Those are my reasons. I don't think the Democratic party has the solution to all those problems, but they are a hell of a lot closer than the alternative. The two party system is terrible. There is too much money in politics. I hope we incrementally change the system to something that better serves more people, especially those that need it most.
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An App to Copy an Image and Paste It as a File
A free app by a developer who goes by INCHMAN1900 on Gumroad can
provide an easy way to manage images if it fits your workflow. His small
app, FASA
(Forget About Save As), lets you copy images from any source to your
clipboard and then paste them as files in the Finder. You can use this
procedure to quickly export files from the Photos app, skipping the
dialog boxes you normally get. It even works on screenshots that you
copy to the clipboard. The programs preferences let you choose between
jpg and png for your preferred file type. You can start or stop the app
at any time and you can choose programs to exclude from using the
service if you have that need.
If you own a copy of Clop, it also has this ability. You can also do it using the Finder replacement, Qspace.
(Note - There are other things in this world called FASA. This is not affiliated with them. The dev and I both know this 😉)
Calling All Bloggers, November is Almost Here

Alright, all you bloggers, November is the month to get behind the keyboard and show everyone what you can do. There are three "challenges" going on at the same time! Crazy, huh? A challenge is nothing more than a soft commitment on your part to write within a certain set of guidelines. There aren't any prizes and it doesn't cost anything.You just get a sense of satisfaction and a chance to use some cool hashtags during the month.
National Blog Posting Month
From Indyweb.org
It was started in 2006 by Eden Kennedy "as kind of a joke because I'd failed at NaNoWriMo the previous year". [1] In 2010, NaBloPoMo was sold to Blogher.com. Blogher continued to run NaBloPoMo, expanding the challenge to every month of the year until around 2017.
The BlogHer site no longer contains any mention about NaBloPoMo and the former link for it redirects to the homepage. Many people still participate using Twitter hashtag #NaBloPoMo.
- First post with the idea: 2006-10-14 Eden Kennedy: NaBloWriMo! (archived)
- Renaming the idea: 2006-10-15 Eden Kennedy: NaBloPoMo (archived)
Writing Month
From WritingMonth.org
In November 2024, 255 authors plan to write a total of 9,564,016 words towards their projects.
Pick your own goal that best challenges you and write your novel, short stories, poems, stage or screen play, blog posts, or any other writing project as part of a growing community of writers.
This is Writing Month.
WeblogPoMo AMA
From WeblogPoMo (see full post for more details)
This challenge is to foster writer interaction: write a blog post starting with a question—the AMA—and then answer the question yourself in the blog post. Others will likewise write AMA/question posts, but also answer the AMA/questions from other bloggers, linking to their initial post.
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I've Been Accused of Hoarding

When Wonder Woman decides she doesn't need something anymore it gets tossed into recycling, or it gets donated. When I decide I don't need something right now, I place it aside because you never know, I might need it later. Therein lies a slight problem. She looks at my stuff with a rapacious gleam in my eye, and from time to time I get a wee bit offended and protective of my stack of eight different sizes of jeans.
One place I can hoard to my heart's content is on my computer. I have stacks of external hard drives full of, well, stuff - movies, music, 25-year-old website archives, multiple backups of photos. I also have accounts in iCloud, Google Drive, One Drive, Box and Dropbox with files on all of them. I have files I created in Microsoft Works, a program that was discontinued 15 years ago.
When it comes to music, of course I have a subscription to one of those all-you-can-eat services, where I can listen to almost everything but the ripped CDs I bought at coffee houses and bars in the far distant past, but I worked hard to download all that music from Napster and I just don't want to let go of it.
I've carried a smartphone around in my pocket since shortly after the iPhone was released. At work, I have always snapped pictures of bar code stickers we used to identify computers, the admin panel on printers, lights on switches and routers and all kinds of serial numbers. I have a career's worth of those photos that I only occasionally cull.
The 2009 iMac I used as a Plex server to watch movies hasn't been plugged in for four years, yet it and all the movies I ripped back in the days when Netflix sent you DVDs in the mail are still located in our family room. When I hear one of my friends talking about their movie streaming setups, I have to stifle the urge to bring them a hard drive to fill up for me. We subscribe to EVERY channel and don't have time to watch what we are already paying for, and here I am thinking of ways to get more.
I went through a collection of articles I'd saved today "to read later". It went back several years, and you could see my learning and interests patterns through different periods. I had dozens of saved YouTube videos on deadlifting and squatting from my power lifting days. There were tons of articles on stupid shit Trump did from 2105-2020 when I was building up my encyclopedic knowledge of his many faults. I had to trash a bunch of NYT and WaPo articles because I'm mad at them and canceled my subscriptions. I had automatically saved the entire blogging content of two of my favorite writers, Matt Birchler and Jarrod Blundy over the course of 2024 and had to eliminate all but the reference material from those prodigious writers.
Of course, I have every tech guy's obligatory box of various cables and connectors. You just never know when you might need a 30-pin iPod cable or s-video adapter. FireWire might even stage a comeback. Stranger things have happened. I think there's even a Windows 7 laptop, sans power cord, around here somewhere that hasn't been booted up in 12 years. We have an extra iPad that I keep trying to think of a use for, and I am still holding on to my last Apple Watch, thinking I might make it my nighttime sleep recorder. I've been thinking about that for quite a while.
Anyway, when Wonder Woman reads this, it may be my last blog post, so if y'all don't hear from me, you'll know she beat me to death for not getting rid of some of my very valuable personal possessions!
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Elephas Did What Others Wouldn't
I had a real-world task today that was perfect for AI, except all the tools I tried kept quitting halfway through. I had a list of over 100 URLs that I needed to convert into a Chrome bookmark file for an import I was trying to do. This involves going out on the internet to get the title of each page and formatting an HTML link, complete with the correct header and footer.
I tried:
- Google Gemini Pro
- ChatGPT Web Interface
- Typing Mind
All three of these would generate between 40–50 lines of code and then quit. The last app I tried was Elephas. I used a very simple prompt, "You are a web developer. You create web pages based on descriptions given to you." The reason Elephas succeeded where others failed was because of the choices it offers in AI models and the limits on them. It allows you to choose between:
- OpenAI (15 different choices)
- Groq
- Claude (7 different choices)
- Custom (local)
- Gemini (four different choices)
I selected gpt-4-turbo and was able to set the context tokens to a max of 100,000. It took a while to generate the file, but it finally did it in a usable format.
Elephas has a variety of pricing plans for both subscriptions, starting at 8.99amonthforlimitedusageupto249 for a lifetime plan with unlimited tokens. I use the version that is available through Setapp with my own API keys for OpenAI and Gemini, for which the charges are negligible.
Another interesting feature of Elephas is its ability to scan folders of documents on your local machine and incorporate that knowledge into its answers. I have an Obsidian vault with 7K notes that it uses, as well as a 1GB directory of PDF files on various topics. It can also do all the standard things we've come to expect from AI apps:
- Generate ideas
- Summarization
- Write articles (don't do this, it's lazy)
- Answer questions
- Reply to emails
There is also an iOS version of Elephas.
3 Productivity Tips and Apps

Here are three cool things I've learned about recently.
1. Create a cumulative clipboard with Popclip
Popclip is an app that does all sorts of things with text you select, from sending it to different apps, to formatting it, looking it up on Google, adding it to your calendar. One trick I learned it can do is to create a list from things you copy to your clipboard, so that you can copy 10 different things and then paste them all at once.
2. Access Menu Bar Commands from Anywhere with Better Touch Tool
Better Touch Toolis an app that lets you create an infinite amount of shortcuts and automations with your keyboard, mouse and trackpad. One of the things I set it up to do is add the menu bar commands to where ever my cursor is located when I type the ⌘ twice. I don't have to remember any shortcuts other than that one to use all the available commands in any program
3. Use Raycast to Auto-Quit Apps
Raycast is a free keyboard driven app launcher similar to Spotlight, except it has superpowers and can replace all kinds of other programs on your computer, like your clipboard manager, your emoji picker and your window manager. One cool feature you can use on a case by case basis is to have it quit programs you aren't using automatically. Macs do a good job with memory management, but after a while your interface gets cluttered if you leave everything open. Just set Raycast to certain quit apps if they go 10 minutes without being used.
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Nothing Lasts Forever

One of the central tenets of Buddhism is that everything is decaying. Eventually, everything falls apart. One just has to buy a home to see the truth in this. Trust me. Today, lots of people were disappointed that a well-liked Internet service, Omnivore, which allowed you to save articles to read later, subscribe to newsletters without using your personal email, and have some articles automatically archived, was turning off its servers on November 15. Some folks had just transitioned to using Omnivore, only to find that their efforts were now wasted. It was my favorite way to read a couple of my favorite writers, so I had to scramble to come up with an alternative.
People have seen it happen time and again. Huge, popular websites and companies have just disappeared or changed so completely that they are no longer the same: MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Epinions, the list is endless. We are used to it now. That's why I say people were disappointed rather than shocked.
If you look at stats, the average length of time that people stay in a job continues to decrease. In 2024, it's a reality that in order to grow your wages, you often have to move from one employer to another. Pensions are very rare these days. Most of us have self-funded retirement; some are lucky to have an employer contribution, but our accounts are portable, unlike in the past. Even jobs that were once looked at as lifetime opportunities aren't the same anymore. I am a retired state employee, and one of the benefits I earned is lifetime health insurance. Too bad for new hires, though. The Republican state legislature took that away from future retirees, including teachers.
I have seen landmark restaurants close their doors forever. It makes me really sad to think that my beloved Zorbas, the diner at the end of my street where I have eaten for 30 years, will be gone one day. I don't think that one set of my grandchildren has ever spent the night with us without going there for pancakes on a weekend morning. Things can be so central to our lives, and then one day they are just gone.
Some great films from the early days of the movie industry weren't preserved, and the works of people like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, and many others from the silent era will never be seen again. The military records of hundreds of thousands of World War Two veterans were burned in a fire at a VA records warehouse in the '60s, and the information on them is not retrievable. People think that the advent of computers means that data will last forever, but that's not true. CDs, floppy disks, and hard drives all have life spans, and if the data, whether it be pictures or music or books, isn't continually moved from one medium to another, one day it will be gone.
I am of an age where my much-loved grandparents are long gone. Nobody likes to dwell on death, but we know that as we age, the frequency at which we confront it accelerates. Our relatives, our peers, our heroes, and idols begin to leave. I still find it hard to believe that I live in a world without people like Muhammed Ali and Hank Aaron, but I do.
So, as trite as it may be, I'm using this reflection to encourage you (and myself) to savor what we have right now. Call your mom. Eat at your favorite restaurant. Read your favorite magazine. Watch your favorite TV show. Enjoy it all. One day it will all be gone.
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NextDNS for Mac
With the deprecation of the classic uBlock Origin as blocker by
Google Chrome in favor of a less powerful Light version and the
ever-increasing need for security, Mac users have the option of
downloading the NextDNS
configuration app from the Mac App Store and setting up a free
account with the enhanced DNS server. If you aren't into acronyms, DNS
stands for dynamic name service and it is what translates IP addresses
into the URLs we use to name websites. You can use a special DNS service
to block malware, ads, trackers and other unwanted traffic from ever
reaching your computer by using one.
NextDNS is free for up to 300,000 queries a month and you can use the same account on multiple computers, mobile devices and your router. It works on Macs and PCs, iPhones and Android devices - on anything that allows you to enter your own network settings. If you have a large household and need a paid account, it is just $1.99 a month.
Technically speaking, you don't even have to use the app .NextDNS can automatically generate a profile for you to use on your Mac and mobile devices and if you have the right kind of router, you can set it up without having to make ANY modifications to your computer.
NextDNS Features
- Ads and Trackers - currently blocking 119,372 addresses
- Block domains known to distribute malware, launch phishing attacks and host command-and-control servers using a blend of the most reputable threat intelligence feeds — all updated in real-time.
- Block malware and phishing domains using Google Safe Browsing — a technology that examines billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites. Unlike the version embedded in some browsers, this does not associate your public IP address to threats and does not allow bypassing the block.
- Prevent the unauthorized use of your devices to mine cryptocurrency.
- Block domains that impersonate other domains by abusing the large character set made available with the arrival of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) — e.g. replacing the Latin letter "e" with the Cyrillic letter "е".
- Block domains registered by malicious actors that target users who incorrectly type a website address into their browser — e.g. gooogle.com instead of google.com.
- Block Parked Domains
- Block any Top Level Domain
- Block Newly Registered Websites
- Block CSAM
- Optional Parental controls for YouTube, Safe Search, Time-based rules, specific apps, websites and games
Betrayed By the Internet Again

If you stick around the Internet long enough, you will inevitably see some of your favorite websites and apps disappear right before your very eyes. Today, many people were disappointed to hear that an incredibly useful and free read-it-later service, Omnivore had been purchased by another company. The announcement email gave users until November 15 to export their saved articles, stating that the companies server's would be erased after that date.
There are a number of other read-it-later services and apps people can turn to. My choice is one that's been around a long time, Pocket, owned by the Mozilla foundation, the organization behind the popular Firefox browser. I like Pocket because it's affordable, less than $4 a month when you pay for a full year. It's archiving feature is limitless and it saves a copy of the articles you add regardless of whether they are later removed by the original publisher. You can add multiple tags to your saved articles and it call all be exported to extensible apps like Obsidian. You can save articles to Pocket with a browser extension or straight from an RSS reader like Inoreader.
Other options include:
A Meditation on Nice People

A long time ago, a friend of mine told me that in life, you find what you look for. I believe that to be true most of the time. I'm always on the lookout for nice people. Thinking about them is a tool I use in my personal gratitude practice, a daily exercise where I record three things I'm grateful for. I have been doing it for years. There's never been a time in my life when I couldn't find some folks with kindness in their heart. Even during the years when I worked as a prison guard, there were inmates who did kind things in a non-manipulative way. I used to drink coffee continually on that job. You could buy a packet of Taster's Choice in the canteen for a dime in those days. An old con who cleaned the area around my desk gave me some sage advice one day. "Mr Plummer," he said, "Don't ever put that coffee cup down and turn your back on it. These boys will spit in it if you do." It's been almost 40 years since he told me that and I still remember him for saving me from that indignity.
During the years I worked as an IT tech in the school system, I would always be showered with gifts at Christmas. Teachers would bring me baked goods, iTunes gift cards, coupon books, CDs and more. With all that teaching involves, remembering the guy who comes around once in a while to look at your laptop takes some real effort. When I took a mid-career break to get married and go hiking for six months, many of those teachers send care packages to my wife and I with edible treats, socks, bug spray and other things from our wish list.
People with demanding, public facing jobs who maintain their cool and make others feel welcome have a special gift. The wait staff at my favorite diner, even when they are slammed, still acknowledge their regulars. They are still nice and patient with kids. They take a minute to crack jokes and to make fun of me for always ordering the same thing.
So many of the tools I've learned to love on my computer are apps that some developer has made and given away for free. Everything I know about creating a blog is a result of freely distributed guides and tutorials. The number of letters I've gotten from complete strangers on the Internet to thank me for something or to encourage me or to praise me is just astounding. People will go out of their way just to make someone else feel good and I think that is awesome. Yes, I have also experienced some meanness online but it's overshadowed by kindness.
I think often about some of the giants I have know who dedicated their lives to the social justice movement. I know men and women who worked in the deep south during the Civil Rights era at great danger to themselves. I know organizers who survived the 1979 Greensboro Massacre who are still committed to the cause of helping poor people. I know union workers who've left home to travel to other areas to help organize workers so that they might enjoy the same benefits. I know soldiers who, sickened by war, laid down their rifles to speak out to try and stop the senseless killing that our government asked them to do in the nebulous name of freedom.
Look for kind people today. Better yet, be kind. Get your name added to someone's gratitude list.
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A Different App for Managing Background Items
I posted yesterday about an app I'd tested called StartupManager
that helps control the login items on your Mac by reordering them,
starting them hidden and introducing delays. One thing it doesn't do is
control items that launch in the background.
Today I found an app that does a good job with that aspect of app management. Coincidentally, it's also called Startup Manager, but it's a totally different app by a different developer, Systweak Software (Shrishail Rana). Where it shines is in telling you all the apps that you have installed that have background processes, even if they are disabled. In the system settings for macOS, some background processes are identified by the name of the developer rather than the name of the app, making it confusing to sort out what you are trying to control. Startup Manager identifies all the processes using the name of the associated app.
The recently updated app (September 2024) provides information on browser extensions, Kernel extensions, Launch items, Library inserts, Login items, and Spotlight importers. In the login items, launch items and browser plugins categories you can enable/disable each item, delete it, get information about it and see where it's located in the Finder.
By default, Apple's applications are not shown, but you can toggle them on if desired.
Startup manager is free and can ve downloaded in the Mac
App Store.
Blogging Resources Complements of Robert Birming

One of the nicest and most helpful people I've encountered on my blogging journey is a Swedish writer by the name of Robert Birming who blogs in English. Robert posts on a daily basis and he also has a newsletter. A man with considerable technical skills, he is the developer of the Bearming theme on BearBlog. Robert maintains a page that every indy blogger should bookmark. The resources it contains are incredible. Give him a follow on Mastodon @birming@social.lol
Blog Inspiration
- Blog Voices - Get inspired by reading other bloggers' stories about why they do what they do, how they do it, and how they find inspiration for their blog posts.
- Blogging - Inspiring and encouraging blog posts about blogging, written by experienced bloggers. Great resources to ignite the creative flame, whether you're a newbie or a pro.
- Writing - Great articles about writing in general and crafting blog posts in particular. Inspiring reading, whether you're a novice or an expert.
- Designing - Top-notch resources for creating a personal blog design that is not only visually stunning, but also user-friendly and efficient.
- Accessibility - A collection of essential guidelines, best practices, and tools designed to help you create an accessible blog.
- Optimization - A great set of website optimization tools that will help you enhance your blog’s performance and user experience.
- Add-Ons - A list of add-ons that can be integrated with your current blogging platform to enhance its functionality.
- Discover Blogs - What better way to get inspired than reading other people’s blogs? Here are some good way to explore the blogosphere.
- What to Blog About? - Are you struggling to find topics to write about on your blog? Take a look at these helpful posts to ignite your writing inspiration.
- Tools & Inspiration - Great resources about blogging, whether you've just started a blog or you’re an experienced blogger who wants to level up.
- Webrings - A webring is a network of interconnected blogs. Each blog in the ring features a navigation bar, typically located at the bottom of the site, containing links to the previous and next blog in the webring.
- Blog Challenges - Blog challenges are interactive events with a shared goal or theme over a specific period. They are designed to encourage creativity, develop a consistent posting habit, and foster a sense of community among participants.
- Bear Blog - Tips, tricks and tweaks made specifically for Bear blog, an awesome blogging platform on which this blog is hosted
- BlogBoost - BlogBoost is an Apple shortcut with various ways to get the inspiration flowing, such as daily prompts and random inspiring quotes. It supports a wide range of text editors. Check out the BlogBoost post for more information.
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I have updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.
Inevitable Things

I'm turning 60 in a few months and though I wouldn't say it's messing with my head in any kind of negative way, it has prompted me to think about aging and mortality more than I have in the past. It's so weird to be getting ready to start my seventh decade on earth while simultaneously being able to recall events from the past as if they happened yesterday. In some ways, it is almost inconceivable that high school happened 40+ years ago. I had dinner with my brother (58) and sister (56) the other night along with my mother (77) and we were recalling events from growing up as if they just happened last week.
I've been going gray for years. Not only that, but I wear a full beard and it is 100% white. Wonder Woman told me today that one of our grandkids said to her recently, "Nana you might be old, but at least you're not as old as Papa." For the record, we are less than two years apart. Still, there has been more than one occasion when we've eaten together, and they've extended a senior discount to me (I'm not old enough) and not to her. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a Sci-fi novel, married to an immortal who doesn't age. She was furious when Kamala Harris first named Tim Walz as her running mate because she thought he was just another old white man. Once she found out that Kamala and Tim are are the same age that he is cool AF, she calmed down.
I charged full steam ahead through my 40s and early 50s, hiking the Appalachian Trail and completing 83 century rides on my bicycle. I thought I'd be going like that for decades until arthritis brought me to a screeching halt and I had to have both knees replaced. Plenty of people go on to have very active lives after that surgery, so there is still hope that I'll get some of that mojo back. My mom walked across England and hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain in her 70s.
Our oldest grandchildren have graduated from high school now. It won't be long before we are great-grandparents. It's funny because all of my siblings, none of whom got married or had kids early like me, all have children the same ages as my grandchildren. I grumbled for years that I didn't like kids, but it was all a facade. I worked in primary and elementary schools for two decades, and being a grandparent has been one of the best experiences of my life.
I'm trying to be OK with the fact that I don't feel like my time on earth is unlimited like I have for most of my life. Not being a religious person, there are no thoughts of an afterlife. Every time I do something unhealthy, I immediately have the thought that I'm robbing myself of time. I wish I could say that I am them immediately motivated to then eat some spinach and power walk around the block, but so far that has not been the effect.
I have got to say that I enjoy having been around enough to be retired from my career job. It's cool going to work these days because I want to, not because I have to. I could stop at any time. That's pretty empowering. It makes the crappy days that inevitably happen at work more bearable. I'm not even the oldest person in my office. Our database manager is three years my senior, and she takes no shit from anyone. She's my role model.
I can accept my eyes getting weaker and my gait getting slower. As far as I can tell, my mind isn't slipping yet. Both my parents are still alive, so family history indicates that I probably have quite a few years left. I hope so. There is so much more to write about.
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Free Startup Manager with Many Options
macOS doesn't make it easy to manage your startup options anymore.
The app, Startup
Manager, by developer Arie van Boxel brings back some of the options
that have been removed and adds quite a few more. If you use Startup
Manager, you can once again choose the order in which apps launch, and
you can have them hidden on launch as well.
Other features include:
- Temporarily disable a startup item without removing it from the list
- Use different sets of startup apps which you can choose at login
- Backup/restore login sets
- Stop/Start all or a single Login Item with the push of a button (you can also use the contextual menu)
- Set a delay between any items during login
- Add any process, such as login helpers inside application packages
- Skip items that need network access when there’s no network available
- Mount network drives
- Apple native, written in Swift
- Import/Export items to/from System Settings
Startup Manager doesn't have any control over items that macOS
launches in the background.
For Linkblog Fans

If you check out this blog regularly or better yet, if you subscribe by RSS, I'm going to imagine that you are a fan of discovering cool new websites, stories, blogs and galleries on the regular. Not only do I post here every day, I also have a weekly post on Micro.blog that I aggregate at Amerpie's Cool Links (there's an original name for you) There are a few really good places where I find links and I though I'd share them with you.
- JCProbaby's Postroll- Mostly posts written by folks from the IndyWeb
- Murmel.social - a daily email that lets you know about the most popular stories of the day based on what the people you follow on Mastodon are sharing
- Morning Brew - a must-read daily newsletter with a links section
- Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends - a Substack newsletter currently on its 772nd edition
- The Weekly Thing by Jamie Thingelstad - a regular newsletter of interesting links, photos and commentary from a smart and friendly guy
- Links at Werd/IO - a collection maintained by Ben Werdmuller who works at ProPublica and is a massively experienced writer and startup founder
- The Installer by David Pierce - a weekly column at The Verge (also available as a newsletter) designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Verge’s universe.
- Labnotes by Assaf - A weekly collection of tools and products you should know about, tips about UX, management, infosec; random and funny stuff. Tilted towards devs, but enjoyable by everyone
- hiro.report - straight from Austin, TX, - sweet dopamine hits of fresh tech, gear, and apps every week
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This Week's Bookmarks - Best Horror Movies, Aerial Photos of Junkyards, Digital Decluttering, Chili Recipe, Food Trends for 2025, Fly with One Bag, Messages for Life

The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time: Critics' Pick
Aerial photos of scrapyards and arranged the junked cars, planes, trains, and other objects_
Digital decluttering – alexwlchan
White Chicken Chili (BEST EVER!) - Cooking Classy
Whole Foods predicts the major food and beverage trends of 2025 | Food Dive
How to Fly With Only a Personal Item—Plus Our 3 Favorite Small Bags (2024) | WIRED
Messages for Life are short, inspirational emails that have been brightening my days. They arrive only on weekday mornings and always contain a positive message, like reminders to slow down, relax, celebrate yourself, and play. These messages convey a lot of wisdom in a very natural and relatable way. They feel like love letters from the Universe.
When You Find Something that Sparks Joy

(Note: this is a repost from my tech blog from a few months back. I was a wee bit busy this weekend being a supportive husband and was away from my computer)
I often make the comment on Reddit or Mastodon that Obsidian, a cross-platform note-taking application, is my favorite piece of software since Netscape Navigator 2, the browser that practically everyone used when we transitioned from AOL and CompuServe to the real Internet back in the 90s. Back then, we discovered new and interesting web pages daily. The Internet was full of hastily constructed and esoteric material, and it all seemed so magical. For our whole lives, we'd had to wait until 10 past the hour for the radio to give us a weather forecast, and now we could use this marvelous piece of software to go to weather.com whenever we were curious. It was revolutionary and amazing, and it took a while to get used to.
Eventually we did get used to it, along with all the other marvels over the past nearly 30 years. I find myself quite jaded sometimes. The computer I carry in my pocket can do almost anything, and I'm still referring to it as a phone, the same name I used for the hard-wired wall mounted rotary dialed device at my grandmother's house. I no longer marvel at being able to do my Christmas shopping from my couch or following a baseball game pitch by pitch, knowing the speed of every thrown ball and the batting average of every hitter right up to that at bat.
I experienced an Internet revival late last year. After an aborted attempt to retire early, I'd lost interest in keeping up with technology. I quit following the news, stopped downloading software and spent hours scrolling trash subreddits like "Am I the Asshole". Out of desperation, I went back to work to have something to do. Even though I went back into the IT field, I was still ambivalent. Instead of being on a Mac like I was used to, I was assigned a slow old Dell full of Microsoft software. It did not spark joy. Then one day I picked up my old iPad and for some reason launched my RSS reader. Many of the blog feeds were years old and dead, but some were still active. I started reading them, first from boredom and then with interest. People were talking about apps I'd never heard of. I cracked open my MacBook and started downloading updates for the OS and the hundreds of apps I'd collected over the years. It took a while.
A British blogger, Robb Knight, had created a page where people were listing their default apps in all kinds of categories. I wanted to get on the fun. I'd been working in the Apple/Mac/iOS space since the late 90s and except for the short break after retirement, I'd always been fascinated by software. In order to get added to Robb's site, I had to start a blog. I signed up at Micro.blog, registered a domain and started writing. One app I saw mentioned over and over that I'd never used was Obsidian. It's free to download, and you can use it all you want without paying a dime unless you want to take advantage of their sync service, something I did a little later.
I documented my learning process in Obsidian as it progressed. I'd download a plugin, watch a YouTube video, configure my setup, use it for a few days and then write a post for my blog. I'd cross post it on Reddit and use a hashtag on Mastodon. I went for months living and breathing Obsidian. I started doing all my writing in it. I pimped out the template for my daily note, incorporating more and more of my life into it. I integrated key email messages via IFTTT, Dropbox and Hazel. I synced my bookmarks from Raindrop.io. I started using Omnivore as my read it later service simply because it automatically imports into Obsidian. I started my first GitHub repository to share 500 Markdown notes containing my quotes collection. I managed to get Obsidian to do every single thing I'd once used Evernote for.
Because of Obsidian, I've been able to learn to blog in the 21st century. I have four different blogs on three different platforms. I've got good notes and records and tens of thousands of words of web posts in my vault. Although I still write about the app occasionally, I've moved on to writing reviews of other software and even into non-technical writing. It's amazing that something as simple as a plain text editor at its core has been at the center of my tech and real-life revival. It is so powerful and so extensible that it almost defies belief. The community around the app is generally helpful, supportive, curious and open. I've even interacted with the CEO of the company on social media.
So, to the folks in whatever Bat Cave Obsidian is developed in, thank you for making such a wonderful tool. I owe you one.
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Obsdian’s Many Uses
In all my time using a Mac, I’ve never found more uses for a
single app as I have for the note taking app, Obsidian. With a robust selection of
over 1900 plugins, Obsidian can be configured to import and manipulate
data from a great many sources. It can even be used for publishing.
Using the Dataview plugin makes it function like a database. It stays
open at all times on both my Macs. There are a great many resources to
help you master it, including on Reddit, Discord, the developer’s
website, YouTube and numerous blogs.
Here are 77 use cases
- A scratchpad for temporary text snippets
- Published blog posts
- Bookmarks via Raindrop.io
- People you work with (co-workers)
- Customers/Clients
- A record of your daily appointments
- Weather reports
- Restaurants where you've eaten
- Recipes
- Watched YouTube videos
- Watched movies
- Watched TV shows
- Music you've listened to
- Games you've played/bought
- Apps you want to buy
- Receipts via email
- Apps you own
- Analytics reports from your web site or blog
- Registration info for software you've purchased
- A record of interactions with your family members who live separately
- Random photos
- Saved blog posts from writers you like
- Phone numbers and contact information
- An outline of your online security plan (DNS, VPN, Firewall, Ad Blocker, Password Manager), just don't include passwords in plain text%
- Copies of your insurance cards
- Lyrics to your favorite songs
- Profile pictures to use on web sites
- A list of numbers to call if you lose your wallet/purse
- Podcasts you want to subscribe to
- Books you've read/want to read
- Vacation plans
- Your favorite memes
- Copies of vital documents like birth certificates, marriage licenses etc.
- A copy of your resume
- Your current and past goals
- A copy of your will
- A copy of your healthcare power of attorney
- The random poem you've written
- Cue sheets for long bicycle rides
- Jokes you want to remember
- A list of things you love
- A record of completed tasks from your task manager
- Your favorite quotes
- Transcripts of your Q&As with ChatGPT or Google Gemini
- Saved emails
- Notes from training you've attended
- The encryption key for Bitlocker or File Vault
- A brag document for your job
- Technical "How to" documents for computer related tasks
- Genealogy info
- Wifi passwords
- Imported web pages from your read it later service
- RSS feeds from your favorite blogs
- Software manuals
- Appliance manuals
- Default settings for your computer
- A record of your Amazon purchases
- End of the year "Best of" articles to check out on books, TV, podcasts, movies, articles
- Screenshots of social media posts you like
- Purchasing wish list
- Templates for various dataview queries
- Terminal or Powershell commands too complicated to remember
- How to write in Markdown
- Search tips, syntax and operators for your favorite search engine or AI
- API Keys for various web services
- Templates for your Obsidian plugins
- Templater snippets
- All the topics in your quotes collection
- Drafts blog posts
- A history of your social media posts
- A "To Watch" list for YouTube and television
- A daily gratitude list
- A record of new things you've learned
- Alarm codes for your relative's houses
- A dataview query for notes created today
- A dataview query for notes modified today
- Waypoint Folder Notes for your important folders of notes
The Wilmington 10 - American Political Prisoners

I have been a dedicated newspaper reader since I was in the first grade in 1971. I did not limit myself to just the comics. I thought Dear Abby was fascinating and I always read the headlines on the front page. In North Carolina in the 1970s an infamous civil rights case was often featured. The Wilmington 10 was the name given to eight high school students, a minister from the United Church of Christ and an anti-poverty worker who had been caught up when the men were arrested for arson, following a bombing during racial unrest in the coastal town of Wilmington. The case was considered by many to be a travesty of justice from the very beginning. The convictions were based on eyewitness testimony from a mentally ill man who recanted during cross-examination and was banished from the courtroom. The other witness was given a motorcycle for his testimony. He too, later recanted.
when the Soviet Union was accused by the United States of human rights violations, the Soviets used the Wilmington 10 as an example of American hypocrisy. After serving nearly a decade in prison, all of the convictions were overturned, and the state declined to re-prosecute. In 2013, over 40 years after their initial convictions, the Wilmington 10 were granted pardons by the governor of North Carolina, although four of them had already passed away. The oldest of them, the Reverend Benjamin Chavis, went on after his incarceration to become the national president of the NAACP.
Being Wonder Woman's Husband

At 8:00 AM Saturday morning, Wonder Woman and about 70 others will begin running a 2.2-mile course over and over for 24 straight hours. Whoever covers the most distance in that time period will be declared the winner. Those completing 50k, 50 miles, 100k, 75 miles, and 100 miles will receive special awards. Some races are entrepreneurial money-making events for the organizers. Ironman, the titular sponsor of triathlons, is a for-profit company. The race Wonder Woman is in is a fundraiser. The money raised goes to an organization in the greater Williamsburg, VA area called The Arc. This is a wonderful inclusive organization offering programs to adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
The name of the race is The Greensprings 24. The start/finish line and crew area (I'm crew) is at Jamestown High School. If you want to follow her, you can do it here. Her race number is 204, and her actual name is Carol Plummer.
I'll be set up in a pop-up off to the side with her supplies. I'll be in charge of filling bottles with both water and a liquid nutrition product called Tailwind. She has prepared packets of sports nutrition products that she will pick up every five laps or so. I have a small backpacking stove to heat up some real food for her to wolf down later in the day and through the night. It consists of things like plain white potatoes and soup. I'll be making coffee for us both.
Today has been kind of ritualistic. We live about four hours away, so we had to travel and check into a hotel. She's stayed off her feet for the most part, although I did have to talk her out of going out and doing tourist things today. She has a more restless nature than I do! It's important that she stays extra hydrated today and that she eats some extra carbs. Her favorite pre-ultramarathon meal is pho, the Vietnamese rice noodle soup made with a salty and savory beef broth. She got into bed at 5:30 to read and hopefully doze off early. We will sleep as late as we can tomorrow before driving the 15 minutes to the racecourse in time to get the crew area set up.
My duties will be pretty minimal. I'm mostly there as a cheerleader and motivator. If she gets blisters, I'll play medic, and as she gets progressively more tired, I'll help her with socks and shoe changes. I'll probably get yelled at a time or two. Ultramarathon runners are known for being grouchy crybabies sometimes because it's a terribly stressful sport. I'm experienced enough to let the abuse roll off. If blowing up at me makes her feel better, she's welcome to call me names any time. I admire her not just for competing in these events but also for all the training and disciplined training, eating, and sleeping she does on top of working an important job full-time, being a wife, a mom, and a grandmother. I don't call her Wonder Woman for nothing!
When the race is over, we will have to pack the car and drive back to the hotel. We've arranged a late checkout so we can both get some sleep before driving home and going back to work on Monday.
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Virtual Buddy - Run Mac and Linux VMs with Ease on Apple Silicon for Free
If you want to test out betas without endangering your primary
machine or if or if your a developer looking to test backwards
compatibility with previous versions of macOS with your app or even if
you just want a safe way to test software you want to try before adding
it to your daily driver, take a look at Virtual Buddy, by developer
Guilherme Rambo, a
GitHub release with 5.1K stars. It also runs several Linux distros
if you have a need for that.
You can choose a Mac release (including betas) from a long list ranging from macOS 13.3 all the way to macOS 15.1 RC1. If you have a URL for another IPSW or an IPSW you have already downloaded, you can use them as well.
If you want to install a beta of a version higher than what you are running on you host computer, all you need to do is download the latest device support package from Apple which you can sometimes download from their website but cal always get if you install the latest Xcode beta.
The developer lists these features:
- Ability to boot any version of macOS 12 or macOS 13, including betas
- Ability to boot some ARM-based Linux distros (tested with Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop)
- Built-in installation wizard
- Select from a collection of restore images available on Apple's servers
- Install the latest stable version of macOS
- Local restore image IPSW file
- Custom restore image URL
- Install a Linux distro from a local .iso file
- Select from a collection of Linux distros
- Install Linux from URL
- Boot into recovery mode (in order to disable SIP, for example)
- Networking and file sharing support
- Clipboard sharing
- Customize virtual machine hardware configuration
- Save and restore macOS virtual machine state
Generation X Isn't Mad, It's Tired

The dividing line between Generation X and Boomers is New Years Day, 1965, fifty-two days before I was born. Over the next 15 years my cohort, smaller than the one that preceded it and the one that followed it (Millenials), began to reap the meager rewards our parents bequeathed us, single-parent families, careers as latch-key kids, run away inflation and coming of age with Reagan in the White House making it easy on rich folks and kicking off the decline of the middle class by breaking unions and kicking income inequality into high gear.
The oldest Gen X-ers are only five years from retirement. Everything seems to have changed for us. We bought records we traded in for tapes that we traded in for CDs before we downloaded MP3s that we stopped listening to when we had to start paying a subscription fee to listen to music. After graduating from high school, I supported a wife and a baby by cooking at a Shoney's and serving in the National Guard one weekend a month. By the time my youngest reached maturity, two adults working full time at entry level jobs could barely make ends meet.
We experienced a few cool things, like getting to watch MTV when they played music video. We've had some great music. We got to transition out of a world that worried about nuclear holocausts. Unfortunately we got to see AIDS put in an end to the free love we thought we were going to get. I've lost count of the financial crises we've endured.

Generation X | Origin, Years, Characteristics, & Facts | Britannica
Gen X is next up for retirement. Are they in denial?
Gen X Research | Environics Research
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Living Lowbrow in a Highbrow World

Back in the days when people still bought encyclopedias, my parents were confronted by an especially good salesman who sold them not only a full set of the Book of Knowledge but also a collection of classic literature. When I was in elementary school, I tackled many of those books because I thought they sounded interesting. I mean, Gulliver's Travels was about little people, and Pilgrim's Progress was about (I thought) American pioneers. I plowed through the books with as much understanding as I could muster at that age, and can today truly state that I've read them. The problem is that it's been years since I felt any urge to approach that kind of book. When I see people reading The Scarlet Letter or Dante, I'm in awe. I would feel like I was back in high school senior English if I picked up one of those books. I'm even inherently suspicious when an enthusiastic reviewer claims that a novel in one of the genres I like these days—English detective novels, science fiction, military fiction—rises to the level of literature.
I'm generally OK with my lack of formal education. I managed to learn enough on my own to support myself through retirement. I can talk to anybody and don't suffer from low self-esteem (quite the opposite if you ask Wonder Woman). I just regret not being exposed to classes like music appreciation and art appreciation. I enjoy some classical music. I've listened to Vivaldi enough that I can generally recognize his compositions, but I don't have any background in theory. Opera is a mystery, and I've only got a rudimentary knowledge of the development of jazz, although I do have a good collection of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
When it comes to art, well, I've been to one exhibition—Norman Rockwell. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I know that hardly qualifies me as a connoisseur. I can name famous artists and tell a Rothko from a Jackson Pollock, but I still feel under-qualified. My son takes trips to Boston and New York just to visit art museums. Considerable space in his tiny Austin bungalow is given over to his collection of art books, and the walls are covered in originals he's purchased at galleries. My walls are covered in pictures of my grandkids and Wonder Woman's photography, which is admittedly pretty arty.
I rarely like any film that wins the Best Picture award from the Academy. In fact, I am still mad at myself for sitting through The English Patient all those years ago. It's not that I'm a fan of superhero movies—not that there is anything wrong with them—I just seem to lack the gene that lets people discern symbolism in films. I'm very much an on-the-surface kind of guy. My most common reaction to reviews of arty movies is WTF?
At this point in my life, I'm not likely to summon the energy to improve on any of this. I've learned to live with my shortcomings in appreciating things the way the more cultured folks do. I feel proud of myself for reading the occasional book of poetry (full disclosure: my son buys them for me) and for reading The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic. That will have to do, I suppose.
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Today on App Addict - Mouse Boost - Right-Click Powerhouse - Integrates into Finder to add extra functionality
Mouse Boost - Right-Click Powerhouse
One of the most useful features of Finder replacements like
PathFinder or Qspace Pro is the enhanced right-click menus they offer
with features like cut, copy and paste for files and the ability to
create different types of new files among others. Not everyone wants to
replace Finder though for various reasons like security and system
overhead. Luckily, there is a handy utility, MouseBoost,
from developer gmshrek that adds numerous features to the right-click
menu in Finder itself.
Features
- Create new file - add any file type you want
- Commonly used directories - I added Downloads and Screenshots
- Commonly used apps
- Commonly used scripts - supports shell and AppleScripts
- Show/Hide Files
- Lock/Unlock Files
- Color picking - copy Hex or RGB
- Cut-paste, move, and copy files
- Add files to encrypted archive
- Open Terminal or iTerm 2 at location
- Change Folder Icon
- Resize or convert image
- Remove item from disk (as opposed to sending it to the Trash)
You can save your settings in iCloud and import them on other computers. MouseBoost may also be called from a hotkey. Any element you choose not to use can be toggled off so as not to clutter your interface. You can also fold any element into a unified MouseBoost submenu.
There is a built-in 21 day free trial. The app can be purchased via IAP for $5.99 It is available in the Mac App Store.
The Gyro is Awesome

Zorba's Gyro is the name of the diner at the end of the street where I've been a regular customer for over 30 years. It's Greek owned, of course , and serves a variety of dishes from American and Italian cuisine as well. The signature dish though, the humble gyro, is a masterpiece. When you walk in, you can see the tower of mixed beef and lamb roasting on a vertical skewer. When I order it, I always get the "all the way" edition complete with red onions, lettuce, crumbled feta and of course authentic Tzatziki sauce.
The history of the gyro is a little mysterious, but some form of shaved meat served on bread has been served in the Mediterranean region since the time of Alexander. The Turks call it doner kebab. Arabs call it shawarma. I call it delicious. Estimates of when it first came to America, or indeed, when it became popular as a Greek street food vary, depending on who is doing the talking.
Ode to Zorba's | Living Out Loud
History of Gyro, an Ancient Greek Street Food
The History of the Gyro, With a Dollop of Serendipity - The New York Times
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The Best Pharmacist in the World

For one reason or another, I've taken some kind of medication on a daily basis for almost forty years. I am an expert at swallowing pills. I'd hate to estimate how many I've taken over the years. Despite the attempts by my insurance company to strong-arm me into using a mail-order pharmacy, I stubbornly cling to a locally owned one that I lucked into by being hard to get along with.
I used to use various big box pharmacies. One thing I quickly learned by doing that was that the people there do not care about you. You might occasionally run into someone with a heart for people, but by and large, the pharmacists and techs there don't form relationships, and they stop seeing their customers as human beings after a while. That's been my experience. They will tell you to come back tomorrow in a minute. They will tell you that counting your own meds after they short you is your responsibility. Furthermore, they won't make the extra effort to deal with frustrating insurance companies. I pretty much would rather die a thousand deaths than deal with one.
Luckily, a local pharmacist with good business sense saw an opportunity to draw business away from them by starting his own pharmacy in a good location. He hired nice, competent people, and most of the time, you could go in there with a prescription in hand and walk out within 15 minutes with your medicine. It was glorious. Unfortunately, he had two giant TVs right behind the cash register tuned in at all times to Fox News. I was in there when they were covering a story about poor people trapped in a flood after a hurricane. The owner of the pharmacy was ranting that it was all their own fault for not leaving. I disgustedly asked him if he thought maybe they should have just driven their Maserati out of town or something.
I went home, went to the pharmacy's Facebook page, and left a scathing review, where I said they had good service but bad politics, and they weren't getting any more of my money as a result. I resigned myself to living in Big Box Hell. Some period after that, I got a message through Facebook from a name I didn't recognize. The writer, first name LeRoy, told me that he'd been a partner in the pharmacy but that he was leaving to go out on his own. He let me know that there would be no giant TVs playing Fox News in his new business and asked me to give him a chance, so I did.
These days, when I go to a doctor's visit for med refills, LeRoy has them filled before I can get out of the parking lot. If I have a question or an issue about one of my prescriptions, I can message him via Facebook or text him to get an answer or a refill. He's fought every insurance battle that's faced me for a decade. When big pharma jacked up the price of one of my meds by 400%, LeRoy figured out how to get me a better price. If I'm late picking up a refill, he doesn't put my meds back on the shelf and yell at me on my next visit; he just holds on to them for me, secure in the knowledge that I will get there eventually.
We are social media friends, and both of us are big baseball fans. I've followed his son's career from club ball through our local high school and summer ball. He now plays for the university where I work, which has one of the nation's best NCAA D3 baseball programs and a legendary coach. LeRoy's wife is a nurse practitioner with her own clinic, and she's treated me for everything from multi-day hiccups to a sliced finger.
In a day and age where so many businesses seem as though they exist only to extract money from you, LeRoy and his pharmacy are a total exception. He gives unfailingly polite service and always makes me feel welcome and cared for. He inquires about my wife, asks about my job, and tells me about his last baseball trip. Everyone should be so lucky.
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SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba
The default Mac controls for audio aren't that great if you have
multiple sound outputs, laptop speakers, Bluetooth earbuds or external
speakers in a docking setup. Rogue Amoeba's SoundSource is an
example of what granular control should look like.
A menu bar app that can be summoned with a hotkey or turned into a floating window, SoundSource offers machine wide controls for Output, Input, and Sound Effects settings for all system devices with a slider for each one's volume control. There is also a button for a feature called Magic Boost which does a great job of enhancing sound quality, particularly on a MacBook's speakers. A drop-down menu provides you with a choice of the default output.
This same functionality can be controlled on a per-app basis. You can set Apple Music to always play on your external speakers with Magic Boost enabled, while having system sound effects played at a quieter level on your MacBook speakers. Should you need to switch to a Teams Meeting or a Zoom call, the system will automatically switch to your earbuds when you open the corresponding app.
SoundSource has 17 different Shortcuts actions. You can use Shortcuts to create custom sound settings for different situations by controlling sources and volume levels with the apps choose to open.
Other features include:
- 10-band audio equalizer
- Volume keys for devices that don't support the native keys (like HDMI and display port audio)
- Headphone EQ
- Magic boost has been upgraded from previous versions
- Menu bar meters for output device, input device, open/active apps
There is a free trial at the developer's website. The upgrade price is $19 and the purchase price is $39.
Should You Eat at Chick-fil-A?

LGBT Activist # 1
If a restaurant was taking the money they make and giving it to organizations trying to dissolve your marriage and take your kids away from you, you wouldn't give a shit if they"have really good lemonade."You wouldn't eat there. - FAITH NAFF
LGBT Activist # 2
"If gay rights advocates permanently withhold our business from Chick-fil-A, we'll send the message that stepping away from hateful causes was a mistake, and companies will be less likely to listen to our demands in the future."Nate Morris (CAS '27)
I don't eat at Chick-fil-A. I like chicken sandwiches OK, but I prefer the ones from Bojangles. Hell, I eat the ones they sell in gas stations. Every Chick-fil-A I come across is always super crowded. They have a reputation for dealing well with crowds, but you have to go be part of a crowd to find out if that's true. No thanks.
The biggest reason I don't eat there though is their reputation for being homophobic. Someone in my area had a Chik-fil-A Support Day a couple of years ago and lots of ostentatious Christians that I know made a big deal out of going their and posting it on social media just in case they hadn't done enough in their lives to be shitty to LGBT people.
In doing some basic research for this post, I found that the hate-chicken people quit giving money to homophobic organizations a few years ago. The owner doesn't even use his personal fortune that way any more. Most people think the motivation behind that is to stave off boycotts and bad press and they are probably right. Right-wing organizations accused Chik-fil-A of caving the the Gay Agenda, if you can believe that.
I know some principled leftists who patronize them now, partially because out of all the fast food chains, they offer more for people with celiacs. Since I don't personally have celiacs, I'll keep on eating at Bojangles though.
VIEWPOINT: Stop Asking Us to Boycott Chick-fil-A – The Hoya
Chick-fil-A and LGBT people - Wikipedia
Chick-fil-A “woke” controversy: Why conservatives are calling for boycotts | Vox
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Online Communities of the Past and Present

Although I used a local BBS and AOL chat rooms back in the day, the first online community I ever found a home in was at Epinions, a dotcom company that paid you to write reviews of commercial goods, including books and albums. You could use HTML to dress up what you wrote, so there was a small but satisfying thrill in learning how to be good at that. As usual, they had an off-topic category too, where you could write about whatever you wanted, and I contributed there all the time. People could follow you and send you private messages. I eventually outgrew it, but I tried to find a guy from there recently, after 27 years, and I succeeded because he's still using the same unique username.
When I had a Geocities website, part of it was dedicated to Vietnam veterans and their kids. I corresponded with quite a few men and women who were eager to have someone to talk with about their experiences. I live near a giant army base, so all the vets I know have comrades-in-arms everywhere they go, but the 18-year-old who got drafted from Iowa in 1967 and did his year in hell didn't always have that, and I was glad to hear them out, publish their stories, and generally just be as supportive as I could.
I was in some great bicycling forums around the turn of the century, one of which still sends me birthday greetings every year. I went as far as Georgia to meet folks from there for an organized ride.
For a few years, believe it or not, I took part in the local newspaper's community forum, which was mostly a cesspool of name-calling and ad hominem attacks on liberals. I'd write outrageously provocative stuff about W. Bush and his wars just to stir up the flag wavers. They doxed me regularly, and the woman I was married to absolutely hated me going on there. After a while, it wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped.
When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I kept an online journal every single day and posted to a website called Trail Journals. As a result, I had people up and down the East Coast who wrote to us and visited us on the trail. It wasn't unusual to meet trail groupies who knew all kinds of our fellow hikers from reading their journals. More than a decade later, I am still in touch with people I first met through that journal.
Then we enter the long dark winter of the soul—Facebook was all there was. I never really used Twitter for anything other than news, so I didn't find much social about it. My Facebook experience is much the same as many folks. In 2008, it was a place to keep up with friends and family and to reconnect with people from the past. Today, it's the same toxic hellscape for me as it is for everyone else. I mostly stay there to see pictures of my grandkids. In 2017, I had a viral post that caused me to get literally thousands of friend requests, many of which I accepted for the hell of it. I met plenty of cool people, including a friend I eventually met in Derry, Northern Ireland.
My experience on the IndieWeb since I joined micro.blog in January has been my favorite experience out of all of them. In 10 months, I've posted more on Mastodon than I did on Twitter in 15 years. I have three accounts on different servers. I closed my Twitter account too, not wanting to send any traffic to what is essentially the Nazi Bar of the Internet. I am a happy customer of OMG.LOL, 500.social, and Onephoto.club. Aside from Micro.blog, I also use Scribbles and BearBlog.
I have accounts on Instagram, Threads, BlueSky, Pinterest, Nostr, Pixelfed, Farcaster, and Tumblr, but I use them mostly to syndicate what I write on my blogs.
I do love Reddit, where I've had an account for nearly 19 years, despite its checkered past. Syndicating AppAddict there has driven lots of traffic to my website. Earlier this year, I volunteered to become a moderator of r/macOS, a subreddit with over 300K members. That's been interesting. I get a chance to help out newbies and to stamp out some toxicity, so what it lacks in actual fun, it makes up in satisfaction.
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Good Old Time Machine Editor - A Useful Free Utility
By default, the built-in macOS backup utility, Time Machine, makes
a new snapshot on your designated backup disk once an hour. This can be
problematic during your work day if you need the full system resources
of your computer, but it has decided to start copying a bunch of files
to your backup. The venerable utility, Time Machine Editor, a free app
by developer Thomas Clement is the solution to this problem. To use TME,
you first need to go into Time Machine options in System Settings and
set your backups to "Manually." Download and install TME from the developers's
website or through Homebrew.
brew install --cask timemachineeditor
Once installed, you can choose any of several options to schedule Time Machine backups. On my work iMac, I chose to stop the backups between 8am and 5pm when I am using the computer but to continue hourly backups after that. To be on the safe side, TME allows you to create local disk snapshots during the time you are not writing to your backup disk. They are very fast to make, and provide additional restoration points. Since they are local, they do not protect against a disk crash but can be useful if the machine goes away from the backup disk for a while.
I've used this utility for more than a decade, and it's never let me down.
Visiting Colonial Virginia

Virginia, just north of my home state of North Carolina, is a wonderful place to visit. Although I am partial to the mountains, there is something to be said for visiting the colonial historical sites closer to the coast. Whether it's Jamestown, one of the first settlements in the new world, Yorktown, site of the American victory in the Revolutionary War or the extensive and richly restored town of Colonial Williamsburg, you won't be disappointed. Thankfully, the exhibits in Williamsburg include ones dedicated to Native American and African American history. It's quite an experience to walk the streets and see people in colonial dress, gardening with period tools and making the same type of crafts that were common in the 1700s. It's a fun and affordable way to spend a day. If you are a cyclist, bring your bike. The 23-mile Colonial Parkway between Yorktown and Jamestown is a road you'll want to add to the miles you've traveled while pedaling.
History of Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Parkway - Colonial National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Plan Your Visit | Historic Jamestowne
Plan Your Visit - Yorktown Battlefield Part of Colonial National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
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The Culinary Misadventures of the Long Distance Hiker

The year Wonder Woman and I hiked the Appalachian Trail, we were away from home for 156 days, from early May to mid-October. At the beginning of our journey, I weighed around 230 pounds. By the end, I had dropped to 180 pounds and was wearing medium-sized clothes for the first time since high school. For most long-distance hikers, the two overriding feelings are ravenous hunger and fatigue. The trail involves over 400,000 feet of climbing, stretching from Maine to Georgia and covering just shy of 2,200 miles. It’s almost impossible for hikers to carry enough food to sustain their weight, though some manage better than others for physiological reasons I can’t quite grasp.
In preparation for our hike, we spent a lot of time packing boxes of food for my daughter and son-in-law to mail to us at various hostels, outfitters, and general delivery post offices along the way. We bought cases of oatmeal, Pop-Tarts, energy bars, corn chips, and other pre-made food. We also dehydrated large quantities of sweet potatoes, black beans, and several London broils to make beef jerky. Since Wonder Woman has celiac disease and can’t eat wheat, we were concerned about finding adequate food for her along the trail. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have worried—or prepared so much food. We ended up giving away large portions of it when it became monotonous. To our surprise, finding gluten-free food wasn’t as challenging as we had anticipated.
A guy my size, carrying a 25-pound backpack and climbing mountains all day in hot weather, can burn upwards of 5,000 calories a day if he hikes long enough. We typically woke up around 5:00 AM to eat and pack our gear. My breakfast usually consisted of two large honeybuns thickly covered with peanut butter or Nutella. Occasionally, I’d indulge in a bagel. I drank instant coffee boiled over the beer can alcohol stove I packed. While hiking, I’d consume a Snickers bar or a couple of Nature Valley granola bars every hour. I also ate quite a few Clif bars, but I found they tasted progressively worse the more I had.
For lunch and dinner, I often wrapped my meals in a big flour tortilla. My fillings included tuna, cheese from a block I carried, dried beef or Slim Jims, hot sauce, and maybe some crumbled Fritos. I always had a second tortilla with peanut butter. For dessert, I enjoyed candy, usually Whoppers or dark chocolate. I also devoured countless bags of pork rinds—they weigh almost nothing and pack a whopping 900 calories per bag. Sometimes I’d eat a couple of family packs of instant mashed potatoes or instant rice or pasta dishes from Lipton. I’m proud to say that, unlike most of my fellow hikers, I didn’t eat any ramen noodles. I like them just fine, but they simply didn’t appeal to me at the time. After returning home, I discovered that I had royally messed up my electrolyte balance by not getting enough sodium, so maybe some ramen would have been a good idea after all.
Hiker hunger is truly on display at restaurants in the towns along the trail. Every few days, hikers need to find a place to buy supplies, wash their clothes, and grab a shower. However, they don’t do any of that until they’ve filled their bellies at whatever establishment they can find. There were times when I’d order a meal, quickly finish it, and then order a second meal before feeling even slightly full. Alongside the food, I’d drink entire pitchers of Coke, or, when we were in the South, sweet iced tea. We were always on the lookout for any AYCE (all you can eat) places, although I was asked to leave a Chinese buffet in Pittsfield, MA, after my sixth plate. In New Jersey, there’s a stretch of trail that allows you to hit quite a few delis in a short span, and I certainly took advantage of that. In New England, I savored a delicacy we don’t have in North Carolina: gigantic full-belly clams. Of course, in Maine, I enjoyed fresh lobster during a memorable meal in Millinocket, the town near the northern terminus of Mount Katahdin.
Most of the weight I lost came back within a year. To this day, I haven’t had another Snickers bar, and I went a decade without eating a honeybun. I’m not a Nutella fan anymore, although I still enjoy a fair amount of peanut butter. Whenever we travel to trail towns during hiking season, I always nudge Wonder Woman if I see a hiker come in, so we can watch them order the prodigious amount of food they typically get. It brings back such fond memories.
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Encrypto - Free File Encryption App
Sharing sensitive data via email or cloud services is risky without using encryption. Advanced users can use Disk Utility or a compression app like Keka to make a disk image or ZIP file with a password but an easier solution and one with a few more features is Encrypto from MacPaw.
Encrypto takes any file or folder and secures it with 256-bit AES encryption. Instead of relaying the password in a separate email or phone call, you can create a password hint with the app that only the recipient would know. You can send the encrypted file via email, Messages, Airdrop, cloud sharing, a USB drive or any method you choose. You can also use Encrypto to create encrypted archives on your own computer for an extra layer of protection if you want to.
Encrypto is a free app, available in the Mac App Store.
Make Your Internet Better Today
Make Your Internet Better Today - A free service can block ads and malware before it ever gets to your computer. Start using it today. I did. - linkage.lol/make-your…

Make Your Internet Better Today

I'm going to be that guy who finds something cool and then wants everyone to join in. The ad blocker that I use, Ublock Origin, is in danger of being neutered by Microsoft, the company that makes my browser, Edge, which I use for some very specific reasons. If you use Google Chrome (and most of you do), your ad-blocking capabilities have been seriously dampened by Google's decision to implement new standards for browser extensions. Don't panic though. There is a solution that is free and will make your computer more private and your browsing faster. That solution is NextDNS, a free service that blocks ads and malware from ever loading on your computer in the first place. If you set this up, you can even stop whole domains from ever loading. Imagine having Twitter never polluting your presence ever again. Not only that, but you can be protected from all kids of Internet bad guys, like those who use domain name typos to trick you, or from known bad actors, over 100,000 known domains are blocked by default.
You con't have to be super technical to get this set up. There is plenty of documentation and help available. Go sign up today!
NextDNS - The new firewall for the modern Internet
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Civic Duties

In North Carolina, where I live, early voted started this week. On the first day, we set a record for voter turnout. Even in the western portions of the state where a recent hurricane destroyed roads and where many people still don't have power, the number of people who turned out exceeded the numbers from four years ago when conditions were not impeded. Wonder Woman and I always try to vote early, partly to get it out of the way and partly out of excitement.
This year we went to a recreation center located about three miles from our house. My kids went to dances there when they were in school, and I have taken my grandchildren there many times to play on the playground. Today I went to defend democracy from the fascists trying to take over my country. Donald Trump recently called people like me "radical left lunatics" and said we are "the enemy within."
We were met by campaign volunteers from various candidates, who are allowed to approach voters as long as they stay 50 feet or more from the front doors. I gratefully accepted a voter guide from a guy who had a list of all the Democratic candidates and offered polite "no, thank yous" to everyone else who wanted to hand me literature. I usually try to research all the obscure races ahead of time, but I was glad to have the guide nonetheless. We used to be able to do straight party voting here, but the Republicans eliminated it because they thought it would help them.
Most of the people in line were younger and there were lots of POC. One dumb ass showed up in full Trump rally regalia and people were staring daggers at him. I wanted to catch his eye and mouth "I'm canceling your vote" but he kept staring at the floor, too embarrassed, I hope to feel like he could hold his head up amongst his perceived enemies. In my mind, whenever I am in line to vote, the happy people are always Democrats and the sour pusses are Republicans. Unfortunately, 60% of white men are probably going to vote for Trump, citing many different reasons but the primary one, I am convinced is to perpetuate white supremacy. Yeah, screw that. Not this white guy.
We had one extremely stupid constitutional amendment to vote on, one that would make excluding everyone under the age of 18 who isn't a US citizen from voting. If you thought there was already a law in place that did that, you would be right, but you underestimate the idiocy of the Republican Party who wants to plant the idea in their pitiful voter's heads that the Democrats are getting ready to allow children and illegal immigrants to cancel Bubba's vote. These people are pitiful.
I will be glad when the election is settled. I expect there to be all kinds of controversy and dirty tricks from the other side. Another insurrection is certainly a possibility. They are losers but they don't lose gracefully.
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Duplicati - Free Encrypted Offsite Backup for Your Mac
I am a firm believer in establishing a backup routine with multiple failsafes. I've managed to hold on to some of my data for over 25 years as a result. Yep, I still have the MP3 files I downloaded from Napster in the 90s. I run a Time Machine backup and I make regular SuperDuper full disk clones. For offsite data storage, I recently discovered Duplicati, a free, open-source backup program that uses encryption to securely store your data on various cloud services, local drives, or remote servers. It offers flexible scheduling, versioning, and incremental backups for reliable data protection.
The free plan covers up to five computers. I downloaded and installed the client. It launches a web interface that walks you through setting up you first backup. To test it, I elected to create a backup of my Obsidian vault using my free Dropbox account as the file storage destination. I elected to back the files up every 24 hours and it has been running every day at exactly the time I selected.
Duplicati also works with Google Drive, One Drive and Box as well as Azure Blob and Amazon S3. It works with Windows machines too, in case you want to add one of those to your free account. Be default is uses AES-256 encryption standard, but you can choose PGP encryption as an option.
The free plan includes:
- Monitor backups from anywhere
- Secure credential storage (planned)
- Insights dashboard
- Monitor up to 5 machines
- View the last 200 backups
- 1 year monitoring retention
- Community support
For the Sake of All that is Holy - Back Up Your Computer

In my 30 years in the IT business, I have been approached by people with tears in their eyes many times, always because of lost data. The things I have been asked to restore include:
- The only copy of a wedding video
- A master's thesis
- Twelve years of lesson plans by a middle school teacher
- Multiple instances of people's photo libraries
I have been successful in a few cases and I've struck out in others. I preach backing up your stuff to everyone I care about. In this day and age, doing so is relatively easy and straight forward.
If you have a Mac, you should be using Time Machine, even if you have a laptop. All you need is a cheap external drive. Everything else is built in to you computer.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
If you have a PC, you can back up your data and settings to the cloud (but not your whole hard drive) with built in tools.
Back up your Windows PC - Microsoft Support
To back up your entire hard drive, you need a third party tool. Here are some options.
Best Windows backup software 2024: Free and paid options reviewed | PCWorld
Everyone should use some sort of cloud solution like One Drive, iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox to back up anything that wouldn't want to lose if their house burnt down. If you don't know how to sign up for these solutions, all of which have a free tier, get some help or pay some one. It's that important. I have been able to keep track oof some of my files since the 1990s, through multiple computers, jobs and houses. Don't lose your important information or memories because you didn't back them up properly.
(Note - if you aren't 100% sure that your photos on your phone are backed up, get someone you trust to verify it for you.)
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Shooting Down Stereotypes

I'm not going to pretend that I don't make assumptions about people from time to time because, as much as I try not to, I fall into the trap occasionally. I'm glad that, for the most part, plenty of other people and I seem to be less inclined to do it these days. We are learning not to assume that when someone is married, it's necessarily to someone of the opposite sex. We aren't as surprised when we find out that our friend's new love interest is from a different race. I love meeting someone who is into technology as much as I am who doesn't play video games, so I don't feel like such an outsider.
At the university where I work, the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities & Sciences, who is a Professor of Religion & Philosophy, is covered in tattoos. The university chief of staff, a diminutive ex-banker, swears like a sailor. The football coach, who looks for all the world like a defensive tackle, turns out to have been a record-setting quarterback in college. The best network engineer I ever worked with talks with an accent that would fit right in "The Dukes of Hazzard" or "Hee-Haw."
People from other regions of the country (or the world) can easily have stereotypes of those of us from the South here in the US. That stereotype is that we are conservative, a little (or a lot) racist, old-fashioned, and uneducated. I always feel that I need to establish my progressive bona fides quickly, especially if someone knows I'm also a veteran or that I worked in manufacturing. I have to do that for my fellow Southerners too, just to keep the ones who actually are conservative racists from trying to include me in their conversations. I am not the type to ever hide a single facet of my personality or beliefs from anyone. I want people to know exactly who and what they are dealing with.
It seems to be a driving force within conservatism to work towards putting people back into stereotypical roles. Organizations that have used DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) are routinely attacked by Republicans, who paint the whole idea as a disturbance to the natural order of the world. They want women and people of color to stay in their traditional places. They make no secret of their disdain for same-sex marriage. When they try to practice inclusion, they use unqualified bootlickers like Herschel Walker or Mark Robinson or someone with the flawed party loyalty of Nikki Haley.
Learning how to escape thinking in stereotypes can be a lifelong process. Some people seem to naturally escape those kinds of attitudes, while others, like me, have had to be deprogrammed throughout our lives. I'm sure I have a long way to go, but I'm happy with how far I have come. Being open-minded is the goal.
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ClicKnow - A Different Kind of AI Tool
Most AI tools on the market these days fall into one of two categories:
- Writing assistants that correct spelling and grammar or do other text manipulation
- Basic question answering or search engine type functions
ClicKnow by independent developer aike9m studio doesn't do either of those things. It also doesn't require a monthly fee or the use of your own API key. What ClicKnow does is act on text you select to perform a variety of functions. It is compatible with PopClip in that you can have apps running at the same time and get full functionality from both of them.
ClicKnow Features
- Translates selected text into the language of your choice (select language in settings)
- Summarize big blocks of selected text, very useful when researching
- Spell check (can be turned on/off in settings)
- Tracks flight numbers
- Pops up a calendar when a time string is selected, allowing you to add it to Google or Apple Calendars
- Calculates the result of a math formula
- Explain selected programming code in plain language
All the actions take place as popups in the app you are working in. There is no switching between apps to get your results. You can copy data right from the ClicKnow interface. If you are working in a multilingual document or even a social media app with an international flavor, the multi-language support is awesome. The ability to get any text explained, whether it is complex scientific terms or the latest Internet slang, is better than any dictionary app.
ClicKnow comes with a free trial. A single license is good for two
Macs. The one-time cost is $12. You can download it from the developer's
website.
Cool Tools and New Skills for Bloggers

When I first started blogging again in January of 2024, I had a few distant memories of making web pages in the 90s, but I had no clue about anything related to CSS or javascript because we didn't use that back in our Geocities day. In the intervening 10 months that I have been back creating things on the IndyWeb on Micro.blog, Scribbles, OMG.LOL and BearBlog, I have learned a lot about how to make my web pages do what I want and how to include certain elements. The learning process is ongoing, and I am always on the lookout for use tools. Here a few recent finds for you to explore.
HTML for People - a whole book just for you on using HTML to make web pages. It starts at the beginning and takes you through everything you would ever need to know.
Weblog Custom · Adding meta tags, manifest, and favicons. - lots of info on how to do some neat customization by Annie Sturdivant AKA @anniegreens@social.lol - a great resource for all kids of development info
The IndieWeb Carnival - every month someone on the IndyWeb hosts pages written by independent bloggers on a previously announced theme. Anyone can join in and you all should!
The Whimsical Web - want some inspiration? Here is a collection of websites that spark joy.
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I made the weekly update to my /now page - Joan Westernberg, Bad Monkey, cheap but good earbuds, lots of blog posts, some links I added to my personal collection

This Week's Bookmarks - Grocery Prices Worldwide, Wildlife Photo Winners, The Truth about Media Lies, Stranger's Project, Content Creators vs. Journalists, 2004 the 1st Year of the Future, Great Talk from XOXO Conference
📝 Procrastinator’s Anonymous - My favorite time to do anything is “not right now.” - louplummer.lol/procrasti…
Procrastinator's Anonymous

My absolute favorite time to do something is "not right now." I never put gas in my fuel tank until the warning light comes on. The pharmacy used to put my medicine back on the shelf until they learned my patterns. I told Wonder Woman that I was going to buy a new pair of shoes for about a year before I actually ordered them. It's not that I am lazy; I do plenty. It's just that I need A LOT of time to think about doing things before actually doing them. I don't know why the prospect of seeing something that needs to be done and then actually doing it is repugnant to me, but it is.
I have collected quotes for years. I have a number of applications to keep them, plus a plain text repository that I maintain on GitHub. I'm super diligent about identifying quotes I want to save, copying them to a specific workspace in an app I use, and making sure I've got all the pertinent metadata: author, source, etc. And that's where the process gets bogged down. I may wait until I have 40 or 50 quotes saved up before I sit down and make myself catalog and tag them and file them in the various places where I like to keep them for reference. For a while, I tried to make doing that a part of my nightly checklist, but that habit did not stick.
There are other computer-related chores that I put off. I have all the emails from Netflix, Hulu, Max, etc. filtered into a specific mailbox so that I can go through them all at one time and add shows and movies that look promising to our playlists. I have an app, Sequel, that consolidates the playlists, so I don't even have to go to multiple websites to add them. I even have a recurring task set up in my to-do app to remind me to do this every Sunday, typically the slowest day of the week. Yeah, I am about three months behind.
We have a spare bedroom where I usually take naps on off days. The cheap bed frame I ordered from Amazon literally came apart, as in it separated into pieces. I was still napping away on the mattress and putting up with the crazy tilt and weird lumps. Wonder Woman found out about it, and BOOM, instantly fixed. She is a procrastination enabler.
Some things can't be put off, obviously. One of my jobs is preparing dinner for us. She is perpetually hungry because her ultramarathon training burns a lot of calories, and she needs to keep her energy levels up. I learned a long time ago that delaying meal times was a non-starter in our house. All I need is a hangry super heroine coming at me looking for a meal!
I'm also pretty disciplined about my blogging. I am currently riding a 204-day streak of posting every day. If I know I'm going to have a busy night, I try to knock something out in the morning before work or at lunch, although sometimes I just have to stay up late. When it comes to habits, I am always better off if I do them 100% regularly. The last time I meditated with discipline, I managed a 365-day streak, and my Apple Watch rings record is a consecutive 617 days without missing one. All this is balanced by streaks I have for putting things off, like replacing my deck, which I have now successfully stalled for two-plus years.
I don't think this makes me a terrible person. At least, I hope it doesn't. One day I might have to do something about it. .
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One of the Greatest Movie Scenes Ever - Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Full Metal Jacket (1987) Pogue Colonel: Marine, what is that button on your body armor
Private Joker: A peace symbol, sir
Pogue Colonel: Where’d you get it
Private Joker: I don’t remember, sir
Pogue Colonel: What is that you’ve got written on your helmet
Private Joker: “Born to Kill”, sir
Pogue Colonel: You write “Born to Kill” on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke
Private Joker: No, sir
Pogue Colonel: You’d better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you
Private Joker: Yes, sir
Pogue Colonel: Now answer my question or you’ll be standing tall before the man
Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir
Pogue Colonel: The what
Private Joker: The duality of man.The Jungian thing, sir
Pogue Colonel: Whose side are you on, son
Private Joker: Our side, sir
Pogue Colonel: Don’t you love your country
Private Joker: Yes, sir
Pogue Colonel: Then how about getting with the program. Why don’t you jump on the team and come on in for the big win
Private Joker: Yes, sir
Pogue Colonel: Son, all I’ve ever asked of my marines is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out.It’s a hardball world, son. We’ve gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
Private Joker: Aye-aye, sir
Kiano - A Unique Image Sorter and Viewer for Apple Photos
Kiano, a
free app from the Visual Computing Group, provides a unique way to view
and search your photo library. On my M3 iMac, it analyzed 22K images in
about two and half minutes. It then displayed a grid of all the photos
grouped together by similarity to one another. For example, all the
landscape images I had showing broad expanses of sky were together, as
were the man, many dual selfies of my wife and i. You can choose to have
the sorting weighted towards color or towards content. Clicking on an
image opens it within the program, where you can make your search even
more granular by it having it find all the images that are similar to
the one you have selected. From that interface, you can also:
- See creation and modification dates
- See the album (if any) the image is in
- View a history of the images you've examined
- Move to the next or previous photo in the album
- View a slideshow
- Add the photo to an existing or new album
- Delete the photo
- Share the photo via the Mac share sheet
You can download Kiano from the Mac App Store. There is also a version of the app for iOS.
Some Links for Music Lovers

One of the benefits of having broadband is the ability to hear just about any song you want to, whenever you want to Apple Music, Spotify and a host of other services let you listen on demand. Lots of time you can find live performances on YouTube. There are a couple of sites that give you a collection of links for just about any album or song that you can think of.
The free website Odesli.com will create a shareable web page for you containing links to album art, websites to listen, websites to make a purchase and to YouTube for just about any album or song. You can create a page with a custom URL or make an embed for what you searched for. Here are a couple I made.
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen - https://album.link/Boss_Nebraska
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Live) - https://song.link/jcatfolsom
A website to help you make lists of albums, complete with album art, to share with friends or on your blog is Album Whale. It's free.
Check out my album list, Alt Country Classics, on Album Whale! https://albumwhale.com/lou-plummer/alt-country-classics
If you're doing research into a favorite band or artist, there is no better site on the internet than AllMusic.com It's been around forever, and you can spend hours reading album reviews and making playlists.
Check out their page on The Beatles
The last resource is Last.fm, a site that let's you upload the songs you've listened to so that it can recommend other artists you might like. I have over 76K plays uploaded and have discovered many, many bands through their recommendations.
My Letter to a Homophobic Friend

I'm a digital pack rat who enjoys browsing through decades-old emails and blog posts from the 90s when I was on GeoCities. I recently found a letter I wrote to a homophobic friend in 1997, where I tried to disabuse him of some backward notions and challenge some of his beliefs. I won't reprint the whole thing because parts of it are cringeworthy, and I use language in it that wouldn't fly today. However, I am glad to see that most of what I believed 27 years ago, I still believe today.
My friend was unhappy that the use of the word "homophobia" was becoming common. He said no one was afraid of gay people and that there was no fear involved. My response dipped into armchair psychology mode, but in hindsight, I still see it as a valid argument.
There is a fear of homosexuals in our society. I believe almost everyone has, at some point, either had some sort of homosexual experience (rarely) or had a homosexual fantasy (commonly). This act or thought provokes such shame and guilt in some people, usually men, that a strong aversion occurs—one that is so psychologically entwined with self-identity that an overemphasis occurs in denying or rejecting the act or thought. We all know men who are so insecure they can't carry their wife's purse for her, buy her tampons, or admit that Tom Cruise is handsome. Why? Because someone might think they are gay, and since they once had a homosexual fantasy, they might be gay. So they better tell some [gay] jokes, buy themselves a four-wheel-drive pickup, a shotgun, and a Pit Bull, and put that rumor to rest right now.
His other complaint was that the "homosexual agenda" was being pushed and promoted. I think the people doing the promotion were "the liberals" and "the media." This was during the Clinton administration, when the culture wars were just getting started, but the flames of it were already burning brightly.
Since I live in North Carolina, prime Bible Belt country, I don't get to see this homosexual promotion everyone is talking about. In fact, I see the opposite. People may not use the N-word much anymore, but calling someone the other F-word happens all the time. Some of the gay people I know are ridiculed, shunned, and ostracized. I've never known a gay recruiter sent by the National Gay Headquarters to a lonely post in my town to convert school children to the cause. I do know my company doesn't fire openly gay employees as it did ten years ago, but I also know people who don't feel sorry for AIDS victims. Logic tells me that no one chooses to be gay any more than you choose to be straight. Who would pick a lifestyle that offers the possibility of harassment, discrimination, the loss of family ties, and the small chance of ever being a parent?
Thankfully, some of my arguments seem simplistic today. Maybe they are even regarded as common sense. As a straight guy with the privilege that entails, I have the luxury of only thinking about the subject when I feel like it or when I see some backward behavior. Unfortunately, the right wing has chosen to ramp up its attacks with things like banning books about LGBT issues and making Tim Walz's sponsorship of the Gay/Straight Alliance at the high school where he taught into an issue.
Since I wrote that letter, some positive things have happened in American society. Same-sex marriage was legalized, and lots of people now know same-sex couples. Contrary to the fearmongering by conservatives, none of us straight folks had to get divorced, nor is it now legal to marry your pet. You can also be gay and out in the military without jeopardizing your career. Last time I checked, the US wasn't threatened by another country due to the weak state of the Army and Marines. I'm glad both of those things have happened, and I hope that an inevitable future conservative win in an election doesn't undermine them.
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Today on App Addict - Deskpad - A Virtual Monitor for Screen Sharing - If you have a large monitor and have the need to share your screen with others, you can experience issues when they can’t match your resolution. The free app, Deskpad, creates a virtual display within an application window that you can easily share with others. Launching Deskpad is equivalent to… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/desk… #Mac Apps 📝
Deskpad - A Virtual Monitor for Screen Sharing
If you have a large monitor and have the need to share your screen with others, you can experience issues when they can't match your resolution. The free app, Deskpad, creates a virtual display within an application window that you can easily share with others. Launching Deskpad is equivalent to plugging in an additional monitor. You can use the display settings in System Settings to change the resolution and wallpaper, as well as any other monitor specific setting you have access to. Whenever you move your cursor to the virtual display, the color of the window title changes to blue, so you will know it is active.
You can download the latest version from Github or use Homebrew.
brew install deskpad.
The current version is 1.3.2, released in October 2024.
OMG.LOL is the Best Thing on the Internet
OMG.LOL is the Best Thing on the Internet - The community at OMG.LOL along with the services offered are the best thing on the Internet. - linkage.lol/omglol-is…
OMG.LOL is the Best Thing on the Internet

When I first started investigating blogging, I was heavily influenced by a British fellow by the name of Robb Knight. One of the many things he recommended for folks looking to involve themselves in this thing called the IndyWeb was a $20 a year membership in the web community found at OMG.LOL Describing what you get for that is kind of hard, but I'll give it a shot:
- A free year of a .lol domain - make your own website, hosted anywhere you like. Mine is Linkage.lol
- Membership in Social.lol - a Mastodon community based on respect for all including the LGBT community, POC and the neurodivergent. That's where I have my account and I've met some of the coolest people I've ever encountered on the Internet, and I've been online for a long time. There is also a Discord server.
- An email address - username@omg.lol, which is cool as hell anyway you look at it. Get it forwarded to an existing email account. It's so easy
- A bio page like mine - Amerpie
- A /now page like this - Amerpie/now
- A status log that can cross post to Mastodon and be embedded in a web page
- A photo gallery for sharing photos and embedding them in your web site
- Would you believe there is more? Go have a look!
I have four blogs on three different platforms and I use elements of OMG.LOL in conjunction with all of them. If all this sounds cool to you but you simply can't afford it, message Adam, the guy who runs the place, and you might qualify for a scholarship sponsored By a caring member of the community. If you can afford it, great, sign up using my referral link, and I promise to use the benefits to help someone come onboard.
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📝 Doing the Best We Can - For once, pop psychology gets it right. We are doing the best we can do with what we have to work with. - louplummer.lol/doing-the…

Doing the Best We Can

One piece of pop psychology that actually seems to be true is the premise that at any given time we are all doing the best we can. Football coaches and motivational speakers may beg to differ, but they have a vested interest in making people think that they can always just try harder to achieve success by whatever definition is popular that day. I don't buy it. I believe that people want to succeed. They want to be good parents, good employees, good spouses. Hell, they just want to be good. In the real world though we are faced with all kinds of mundane challenges, from differing energy levels, differing states of mental clarity and motivational levels that rise and fall on a sea of different inputs.
I'm not advocating using this sentiment as a cop out for slacking. I'm advocating it as an explanation for the human condition. There are healthy methods of self-criticism, and then there are unhealthy feelings of low self-worth or guilt that serves no purpose. A certain amount of staring at one's own belly button is OK, but excessive bouts of obsessing over previous life choices is a self-centered exercise that serves little purpose. Learning how to be easy on yourself is the first step in extending that same level of acceptance to those you feel have let you down in life, whether it be your parents, former bosses or the bully in third grade.
I started my parenting journey as an 18-year-old living in a trailer park making $4.25 an hour, riding a Sears bicycle to work. By the time my oldest left to join the Navy, I owned a home, a couple of cars and had a state job from which I retired. Today that kid (now 41) manages a team of 600 people, talks to me all the time and has a life that would make plenty of people envious. He turned out just fine. I made plenty of mistakes with my kids. I don't say that lightly at all. Of course, I wish I'd been better in the Dad game, but I know longer wallow in any kind of guilt. My love for them never wavered, and that is what's important.
As a four times married recovering alcoholic with bipolar disorder, you better believed that I have regrets. I just don't have self-loathing. Life can be incredibly hard for the best equipped among us. Throw in a few handicaps and we all become miracles very quickly.
Everyone has a story. Everyone has things in their life other people don't know about. You can't tell who is recovering from a family death, who suffers from chronic pain, or who is desperately searching for an antidepressant that actually works. Some people make a big deal about not being judgmental, but I don't buy it. Being judgmental is a survival skill. I make judgments all the time, but I try not to do it in a way that lets other people live rent-free in my head. In my line of work, I deal with people who don't like or understand technology. Some get frustrated easily and act out when their computer doesn't do what they want it to. I don't like being treated rudely, who does, but I understand where they are coming from. I just file them in the appropriate mental category and I move on, or at least I try.
I don't pretend to love every one. I can't use "they're doing the best they can" to solve all my issues with the world. It doesn't help me understand or forgive Trump supporters, uncaring bosses or various flavors of mean people, but it definitely helps me deal with the people I care about.
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Five Free Single Purpose Apps
I've been making my way through some of the recent additions at thriftmac
and testing some of the most useful looking apps. Here are five that
address some real world issues in a simple and understandable way. You
won't have to spend a lot of time reading documentation or setting up
intricate preferences. You can start using these quickly.
- TrashSweep - For anyone who churns through a bunch of files, whether you are a chronic downloader. doing video editing or just overworked, automating the size of your Trash can be accomplished with this app that lets you set a certain size limit and when you reach it, begins deleting files on a first in, first out basis. Never be shocked by the size of your trash again.
- Speediness — Sindre Sorhus - I'm making a rule that every list of good apps posted on r/MacApps has to include one from Sindre Sorhus. This app uses the macOS network-quality command line tool under the hood to give you better results than Ookla or fast.com. You can pair Speediness with other tools to have it run automatically and display the results in your menu bar. See the app's website for instructions.
- JuxtaText - If you use an AI based grammar and spell checker that doesn't tell you what it changes in your test, use this app to find out yourself. Paste your original text in one pane and the corrected text in the other one, and let JustaText show you what got changed.
- QuickRecorder for Mac This free app allows you to record your entire screen, an area of the screen you define, an application, a particular window or a mobile device connected via USB. In addition, it records system audio without the need for any extra drivers or applications.
- KeyCastr - This free and open-source app is for anyone who does presentations, make videos or shares their screen. It allows your keystrokes to be displayed and you can choose the size, color, time on screen and the fade delay. It also shows mouse clicks.
Bump Up Your Meme Game
Bump Up Your Meme Game - A good meme says a lot. Here are some famous ones to study and a website to make your own. - linkage.lol/bump-up-y…

Bump Up Your Meme Game

I'm not ashamed to admit that I appreciate a good meme. There are just some people who are deadly with the damn things. They can pull the right one out of their hat and spring it on you at any time. Some high bowed folks look down on communicating this way but they need to get a grip. In 2024, rapidly identifiable visual media is where it's at. Yeah, sometimes the TikTok crowd uses stuff that is over my head, but that's to be expected. I am old and they are young and that is the way the world has worked since time immemorial.
50 famous memes and what they mean
📝 Blogs Are Not Commodities - The blogs I like are building blocks of something beautiful and heartfelt, not optimized, market driven revenue generators - louplummer.lol/blogs-are…

Blogs Are Not Commodities

Somehow, when I first investigated starting a blog, I managed to avoid the many websites devoted to creating a money-making machine USING THESE 10 SIMPLE TRICKS!!! The blogs I was familiar with weren't covered in ads, and I didn't have to pay to read them. There was an occasional invitation to buy the writer a coffee, but nothing high-pressure or gross.
A couple of weeks ago, Keenan, the creator of A Very Good Blog, wrote a long, heartfelt post about his lifelong relationship with his much-loved cousin and how the American political divide affected their relationship. It's the kind of work that deserves to be included in an anthology and everyone's Best of 2024 collections. It wasn't surrounded by banner advertisements or cut off in the middle with a place for paying customers to log in. No, it was offered to the world as the work of art it most certainly is. Many people have now read it, shared it, cried over it, and been inspired by it. The ability to write like that is a gift Keenan shares with the world. The people who recognize the richness of the Indy Web, the small web, and the blogs that comprise it are the grateful beneficiaries of Keenan's largesse. They, I mean, we, are a community who share pieces of ourselves, of our lives with one another because we feel called to do it.
I like to write, and of course, I want what I publish to be seen by as many people who might care to read it, but I don't want to approach what I have to share with a marketer's eye. My blogging style is mostly autobiographical and very personal. I write about my life, warts and all. I feel good when I finish a post. I'd never want to worry that I needed to appeal to this or that demographic or use certain keywords to make Google like me. I just want to tell stories, make people think, and be a part of the small group that rejects corporate algorithms in favor of honest engagement with an audience that isn't manipulated into viewing Living Out Loud, Linkage, or AppAddict.
Since 1994 I've made a living by helping people with technology problems in one way or another. Luckily, my interest in computers hasn't been ruined by doing it for a living. But that's just it. I already have a profession I love. I have no more desire to pad my bank account by blogging than I do in finding a way to monetize my bicycle or my hiking boots. It's shameful that there's a movement in this country to have people monetize their hobbies when what we need is a movement to make sure working people earn enough from their jobs so that they can have meaningful lives away from work.
I make no claims at artistry. I'm just a guy with a laptop and some spare time. I'm grateful to anyone who uses part of their precious minutes on this earth to read what I post. I'm not planning on stopping, and I don't think I'll ever be interested in taking money out of your pocket.
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Today on App Addict - Gladys - Free Shelf Utility that Syncs With iOS - I recently discovered Gladys, a free app that allows you to stash a variety of data types an a shelf on your computer display to retrieve later or to access from another computer or iOS device. I quickly tested: • A dragged image from a web page • Pasted text… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/glad… #Mac Apps 📝

Gladys - Free Shelf Utility that Syncs With iOS
I recently discovered Gladys, a free app that allows you to stash a variety of data types an a shelf on your computer display to retrieve later or to access from another computer or iOS device. I quickly tested:
- A dragged image from a web page
- Pasted text copied from the web
- A URL dragged from my browser
- An image file from Finder
- A text document from Finder
All of these quickly synced via iCloud and were available immediately on my iPhone.
Some of the functionality is similar to Yoink, a paid app that also features a clipboard manager and a notes function.
Gladys is a native Mac app that supports standard keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste, handoff, Quicklook, Spotlight, Handoff, service integrations and a share extension for apps that don't support drag & drop. You can use notes and labels for each item you add if desired. The app has built in search for any element. You can share items from Gladys with other users of the app, helpful on a workplace team or in a family environment. Glady collections can be exported and imported via .zip files.
Gladys has a strict privacy policy and employs no analytics. You can download it on the Mac App Store.
Cardinals at the Window - A Benefit Album for Western North Carolina
Cardinals at the Window - A Benefit Album for Western North Carolina - An album featuring 136 artists costing only $10 is available with the proceeds benefitting hurricane victims in Western, NC. - linkage.lol/cardinals…

Cardinals at the Window - A Benefit Album for Western North Carolina

In late September of this year, Hurricane Helene blew through the mountains of several states and in its wake whole communities were erased. Places that hadn't flooded in a millennium were inundated. It will take years, if not generations, for the counties of Western North Carolina to recover. Cities like Asheville will never be the same. To raise money for those in need, 136 members of the music community from and associated with the area created an album available on Soundcloud for $10. You can stream it and download all 136 songs. Some of the artists who contributed include:
- REM
- Jason Isbell
- Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
- The Avett Brothers
- Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats
- Lambchop
- The Drive-By Truckers
- The Hold Steady
- Iron and Wine
Cardinals At The Window | Various Artists | Cardinals At The Window
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📝 Quit Being Paranoid - Being cautious is a survival skill. Being paranoid is just an annoying personality trait. - louplummer.lol/quit-bein…

Quit Being Paranoid

Being appropriately cautious is a survival skill. We have evolved to do things like sniff food before we eat it to make sure it isn't spoiled and to keep our guard up around strangers. A lot of human behavior is understandable in that context. I wouldn't consider myself reckless in any way. I drive cautiously enough. I haven't been in any kind of physical confrontation in decades.
Certain cautious behavior is gender based and makes perfect sense. Like most men, I don't think about being the victim of sexual assault. Most people have individualized reasons for their comfort with risk. I get it.
Having said all that, I'm still not cool with paranoia. There is a certain amount of risk inherent in being a functional adult and no one gets to escape from all of it. When I see a person who is so risk averse that they deprive themselves, or worse, they deprive others, it drives me nuts. I like computers and software. It's kind of my thing. I see many, many people who act terrified to install or use all kinds of software out of unfounded or unspecified fears. I'm not just talking about technologically ignorant people either. There are people in my industry who think that there is something or someone nefarious behind every new app. There are ways to investigate these issues and ways to mitigate risk. Quit being paranoid!
In jobs I have had, I trust that my bosses have enough faith in me to make professional decisions when a new situation arises. It's a judgment call, of course. There are times when one needs to seek guidance. Most of the time, however, I have no problem making a call and moving forward to get a job done. If my decisions are questioned, I feel fairly confident that I can defend them. I am sure you have encountered people though who get paralyzed if they are faced with the unknown. They come to a dead stop and act as if they just know they will "get in trouble" if they do anything without running it by the boss first. I want to grab these people by the neck and shake them. Quit being paranoid you sorry excuse for an adult. Quit trying to evade all responsibility. Grow a pair.
Then there are the people who are sure that the mysterious "they" are out there thwarting progress and holding back the common man. The people who blame "them" without ever trying to get to the bottom of who "they" might be are another category I'm pretty derisive about. There is no doubt that giant corporations do not have society's best interest at heart. Capitalism is not structured that way. Rather than railing against the unknown, however, learn to name and shame the people and organizations behind your oppression. Let that knowledge influence how you vote and where you spend your money. We have limited power as individuals, but we do have some, plus we have the power to organize and to take collective action. That's how slavery was ended, how women got the vote, how child labor was outlawed and how every labor protection in existence came into being. Quit being paranoid. Do something!
If anything about this offends you, I do not apologize. Quit being paranoid!
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Today on App Addict - Mac Pilot for Customization and Utilities - Mac Pilot, a customization and utility app from Koingo Software is currently $3.00 on BundleHunt. There are similar apps like Onyx and Tinker Tool out there that are free, but for the price I thought I’d take a look. Applications Mac Pilot contains settings for several system apps. Here are… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/mac-… #Mac Apps 📝

Mac Pilot for Customization and Utilities
Mac Pilot, a customization and utility app from Koingo Software is currently $3.00 on BundleHunt. There are similar apps like Onyx and Tinker Tool out there that are free, but for the price I thought I'd take a look.
Applications
Mac Pilot contains settings for several system apps. Here are just of the few things it can control.
- Calendar - change event duration
- Dock - single app mode, enable window previews
- Finder - enable "Quit Finder"
- Help Viewer - user normal instead of floating windows
- Launch Pad - Reset contents, control \# of rows and columns
- Music - enable half-star ratings
- Quick Time - Remember open movies on quit
- Safari - Backspace goes to previous page
- Screen Capture - change file type
- Spotlight - Reset index
- System - Disable notification center
- Terminal - Window focus follows mouse
- Time Machine - Do not prompt to use connected drives
Disk
Gives info and lets you perform maintenance on individual partitions
- Disks info
- Files Info
- Maintenance
File Browser
Detailed file information and settings
- General - Includes last backup date
- Details - Over 30 Unix characteristics on each file
- Access - Adjust traditional permissions and ACLs
- Advanced - Allows you to lock files
- Legacy
Login
- Change many features of your login screen - including the displayed image, which is totally worth the whole purchase price to me!
- Show or hide any users of the computer on the login screen
- Enable and disable login items and launch agents
- Set defaults for window states on login
Logs
- Built in log viewer
- Complete list of system receipts for installed software titles that issue them
Maintenance
- Automated - Enable or disable system cron jobs
- Update or rebuild launch services database
- ** Force empty trash and clear print queue - Very Helpful!**
Network
- Detailed info for every network interface
- Custom sharing settings including enabling airdrop on legacy machines
- Shortcuts to hidden utilities: Airport Utility, Wireless Diagnostics
- Complete Port List
- Network Optimization for selected broadband connections
Power
- Hidden settings for system, AC and battery
- Sleep settings for disks, display, and system. Plus auto-power off settings
- Hibernation settings
- Scheduling for wake and sleep
Reference
- Error Codes
- Fonts
- Key Combos
- Manuals
- System Profile
In addition there is a section for getting more information and doing some optimization but it requires disabling System Integrity Protection and I did not explore that.
The final potentially helpful tool is one that strips out the files from binaries for either Intel or ARM processors if you are running low in disk space and want to eliminate things you don't need. I'd make damn sure I had a good backup before using that.
Can I Trust This App
Can I Trust This App - Learning how to determine whether software is trustworthy is a 21st century survival skill. - linkage.lol/can-i-tru…

Can I Trust This App

In any discussion of software, regardless of the app in question it seems, someone always asks "Can I trust this app?" seeking some protection against malware or privacy invasion. It would serve anyone interested in investigating software or trying new apps to learn a few things about how to answer this question for themselves. Here is a list that is not comprehensive but should serve as a good place to start.
Search Reddit for references to the app.
Apps from the Mac app store can generally be regarded as safe from malware, but you should read the privacy policy and make a decision based on your comfort level
Use a firewall like Little Snitch or Lulu if you have concerns about an app accessing the Internet with your data. Objective-See also makes Block-Block which will notify you when new apps try to access the Internet.
Don't use any pirated software
Don't disable System Integrity Protection or Gatekeeper
If downloading from third party sites like MacUpdate or GitHub, evaluate the number of downloads or stars an app has to determine how widely used it is. Generally (but not always) apps that have a lot of users have been investigated by enough people to be safe.
Stay current on tech/Apple news. If there is a misbehaving app, it generally makes the news.
If you want the extra protection, use something like Malware Bytes on demand scanner
If you are dealing with highly sensitive financial or other data, learn how to use encryption tools like Cryptomator so that you have control and you are not relying on unknown developers.
Learn to use a VPNs if you have security and privacy concerns.
Don't believe everything you hear. There are bad actors who spread misinformation about safe apps. Paranoia can also be catching.
How Can I Tell If a Download Is Safe?
11 Easy Ways to Know If It Is Safe to Download Something
Agree? Disagree? What have I left out?
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
📝 What Is Your Love Language? - In what way do you like to be shown you are loved? - louplummer.lol/what-is-y…

Today on App Addict - Switch Glass - A Configurable Application Switcher with Per Display Settings - If you are one of those Mac users frustrated by the fact that the default dock is only visible on a single display, or you don’t like the way it deals with hidden windows, or maybe you wish you could hide certain apps, you might want to try Switch Glass,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/swit… #Mac Apps 📝

Switch Glass - A Configurable Application Switcher with Per Display Settings
If you are one of those Mac users frustrated by the fact that the default dock is only visible on a single display, or you don't like the way it deals with hidden windows, or maybe you wish you could hide certain apps, you might want to try Switch Glass, an app by well known Apple podcaster, developer and writer, John Siracusa.
Switch Glass lets you configure a (hide-able) floating app switcher for each display in your setup.
• Visibility - Set it to be visible, hidden or auto-hidden/visible
depending on mouse position
• Position - Choose from eight
positions on each screen
• Orientation - Horizontal or vertical
positioning
• Background - Choose from four different backgrounds
including dark mode toggling
• Styling - Three different corner
styles
• Icon Size - App icons can be anywhere from 16 to 256
points in size
• Icon Spacing - Adjust from 0 to 100% of the icons
sizes
• Margin - Adjustable around the switcher itself
• App
Sort Order - Apps can be sorted by name or launch order
You can customize what clicking or shift clicking on an app does, with options to bring all windows or a single window to the front. Using option+click will hide the current front app while opening the app you click on. The app switcher has a context menu for each app and supports dragging items to the icons to open them.
As would be expected from a developer known for having exacting preferences in his workspace, you can fine tune almost every element in the app. Switch Glass is $7.99 on the Mac App Store.
Death Row Last Meals
Death Row Last Meals - The last meals of convicted criminals have long fascinated us. What would you ask for? - linkage.lol/death-row…
John Wayne Gacy’s Last Meal
📝 Adventures in Grandparenting - A weekend with the grandkids and Tae Kwon Do, a football game, piano practice, a corn maze, a music store, AYCE French fries and a movie. Is that all? - louplummer.lol/adventure…

Yonks - A Well Designed Day Counter
Yonks is a well-designed iOS app
that works quite well as a standalone app on Apple Silicon Macs. It's a
day counter that determines how many days since and event or how many
days until an even with lots of extra special touches. For a one time
purchase of $1.99 in
the App Store vs. subscription apps at 4X that price just for a year
of use, it's almost unbeatable.
Ever wanted to know how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years have passed since you were born or since you got married? What about counting down to your next vacation or the end of an important project? Maybe you want to count the days since you started a diet, quit smoking or drinking or started a new fitness routine. Do you want a way to count down the time until a new movie or video game is released. Yonks (British slang for "a long time") can do it for you.
Features
- Choose between counting minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years and select a custom emoji and color for every counter.
- Order your counters manually, alphabetically, increasing or decreasing by date or by color.
- See when a notable milestone occurs (e.g. "When is your 1000 day anniversary?") and add it to your calendar.
- Need to remember more than just a date? No problem, just add a custom note to your counter.
- Yonks has a growing list of popular counters from a variety of categories (holidays, sports, movies, games, …) for you to add with one tap.
- Change the date, time and number formats according to your local or personal preferences.
Yonks does not have iCloud syncing but I had no trouble creating my setup on my phone and exporting a json file via the settings that I easily imported on my MacBook via the same mechanism.
According to the developer, Stefan
Grund, a new update is scheduled to drop on 2024-10-14 and version 2
of the app is in the works.
Just How Much Cocaine Was in Coca Cola?
Just How Much Cocaine Was in Coca Cola? - You’ve heard the tales about Coke. have you ever looked into them? - linkage.lol/just-how-…

I’ve updated my /now page with info on a classic American police procedural series, a British spy TV series, all 21 blog posts from this week, my favorite recent Amazon find and all the bookmarks I added to my personal collection.
📝 Changing Computer Habits - My computer usage changes little from day to day but massively over the years. - louplummer.lol/changing-…

This Week's Bookmarks - Human/Animal Hybrids, Internet Forums, Generational Labels, Book Finder, Hurricane Propaganda, Panoramic Photo Awards,

Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information - Aftermath
What generation am I? A full breakdown of the years (and names)
Find book recommendations based on your favorite authors
From the Storm to the Stormtroopers - by Timothy Snyder
Panographic Photo Awards for 2024
Donald Trump Is the Tyrant George Washington Feared - The Atlantic
Marta - A Free Dual Pane File Manager
Marta is a free, dual-pane file manager for macOS written entirely
in Swift, making it fast and responsive to both keyboard and mouse
commands, although it specializes in the former. Under development since
2016 by software engineer Yan Zhulanow of Jet Brains, Marta may move to
paid model in the future but for no it can be downloaded for free at the dev's website.
Some of Marta's key features include:
- Extensive keyboard support
- No user tracking
- Ability to edit files inside archives and nested archives
- Documentation to guide users in customization
- Theme supprt (plus you can add your own)
- Plugin support through a custom Lua API
- Actions panel (instead of layers of menus)
- Quick search
- Uses Mac's Quicklook and plugins
- Toggle hidden files
- Built in terminal
- Disk usage analyzer
- Multiple tabs and windows to create workspaces
North Carolina's Beaches
North Carolina’s Beaches - The 300 miles of southern coastline along North Carolina’s shores and beautiful and affordable. - linkage.lol/north-car…

Great List of Apple News, Tips and tricks from u/TheCallOfTheRooster on Reddit

A thread on r/MacOS, a group I help moderate on Reddit, included a pretty good list or resources today. Plug these into your RSS reader and you’ll be sure to keep up with all the latest Apple, iPhone and Mac news.
https://9to5mac.com - Apple news and rumors galore.
https://macrumors.com - the Goliath of Apple news and rumors, the one, the only, MacRumors.
https://appleinsider.com - long-running rumors and news site, got subpoenaed by Apple in 2006 for publishing leaks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Does](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Does)).
https://tidbits.com - “the longest-running Internet technology publication”, Apple coverage since 1990.
https://cultofmac.com - been around for ages, published by popular Apple book author, good mishmash of Apple stuff.
https://osxdaily.com - great Apple tips and tutorials site, been around since 2006.
https://macobserver.com - born in 1998, nice bit of everything Apple.
https://idownloadblog.com - since 2008, probably the best source of jailbreaking info around.
https://iphonehacks.com - around since 2007, iPhone and jailbreak focus.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/](https://mjtsai.com/blog/) - comprehensive link-out site and interesting insight, from an Apple developer perspective.
https://mrmacintosh.com/blog/](https://mrmacintosh.com/blog/) - Mac admin focused, useful for enterprise and troubleshooting.
https://www.macstories.net - heavy iPad and automation focus, if you like Shortcuts this is your place.
https://sixcolors.com - MacWorld alumn and good insight.
https://www.loopinsight.com - MacWorld alumn, mostly a link-out site.
https://daringfireball.net - insight from John Gruber, a well-connected Apple fan.
https://macworld.com - born in 1984! The original Mac magazine.
https://appleworld.today - spun off from TUAW, remember TUAW?
https://www.iphoneincanada.ca - for the Canadian Apple fans out there.
https://appadvice.com/](https://appadvice.com/) - App focused and app reviews.
https://www.patentlyapple.com - digging into Apple patents, offers clues into the direction Apple is thinking.
https://objective-see.com/blog.html](https://objective-see.com/blog.html) - deep insight into Mac malware.
https://lowendmac.com - Got an old Mac or two laying around? This is the site for you.
https://forums.macrumors.com - probably the best Apple focused forums on the web (other than reddit, of course).
https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AS7Hj1mBMGM/mark-gurman](https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AS7Hj1mBMGM/mark-gurman) - stories from the ace Apple rumor reporter out there, Mark Gurman.
https://developer.apple.com/news/](https://developer.apple.com/news/) - Apple developer news, straight from the horses mouth.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/) - Apple PR newsroom.
https://512pixels.net - Good Apple hobbyist site.
https://eclecticlight.co - Mac troubleshooting oriented.
https://macdailynews.com/](https://macdailynews.com/) - Long-running Apple news aggregator.
https://www.aboveavalon.com - focuses on Apple financials.
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=19&sid=b86f431b9a5406eeb1452afc73d7096a](https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=19&sid=b86f431b9a5406eeb1452afc73d7096a) - ArsTechnica Mac forums
📝 When You Don’t Have a Stop Button - What it is like living with a personality that never gets enough of anything pleasurable. - louplummer.lol/when-you-…

Keysmith - Record Automation Macros With Ease
Keysmith is an automation
app that works in any other app on your Mac to record actions you can
later trigger from a menu or with a keyboard shortcut. I've been a
Keyboard Maestro user for many years. I have over 800 macros within that
application and a lot of experience using it, but after working with
Keysmith for just a short while, I have to admit it makes some actions
easier to record and activate. It's not a replacement for Keyboard
Maestro, but it will certainly supplement it.
Keysmith detects buttons, lists, and page loads automatically. The first macro I created with it was able to Open Obsidian, copy my daily note, open Day One, create a new entry and paste the content from Obsidian. I assigned it to HyperKey+D and was able to trigger it while I was in my web browser. I tinkered with it a little and was easily able to get it to close Day One after the entry was created.
The process is simple. You start the recording of a macro from a button on the menu bar. Your perform the action you need and Keysmith records your clicks and keystrokes. When you're done, you save the macro, give it a name and assign a hotkey if you want to.
Some of the example macros available for download on the Keysmith web site are:
- Refresh extensions in Chrome
- Share screen in Discord
- Eject external hard drive in Finder
- Assign and submit a pull request on GitHub
- Enable Dark Mode in macOS
- New note with template in Apple Notes
- Switch to a specific Slack channel
- Switch to Zoom gallery view
- Quit all apps with AppleScript
- Close Notification Center in macOS
You can use the total functionality of Keysmith for free to make up to five macros. The full version is $54. It is also available as part of Setapp.
What is your IQ
What is your IQ - Your IQ score can vary throughout your life depending on your lifestyle. Heavy drinking is not recommended. - linkage.lol/what-is-y…

📝 Life Pro Tips for Grouchy People - If you’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, use these tips to survive your day. - louplummer.lol/pro-life-…

Licensed - A Nice Single Purpose App for Keeping Track of Your Software
One of the reasons that I go to r/MacApps every single day
is the prospect of discovering news apps and developers. This week I
found out that an ancient app (well, 17 years), Licensed, has been updated
and is compatible with macOS 15. Licensed is a simple database to keep
track of your software purchases. It has fields for:
- Maker
- Product
- Version
- Owner
- Code
- Date
- Notes
The database is searchable. From the app's file menu, you can identify the data file for easy backups, and you can export your data as a CSV file so that you can be assured you aren't locked into any proprietary format.
Licensed is a free app from developer Amar Sagoo. You can download it on his website.
Meet a Pop Culture and Internet Ace
Meet a Pop Culture and Internet Ace - Meet one of my favorite bloggers, a guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of some of the most interesting aspects of pop culture over the past 30 years. - linkage.lol/meet-a-po…

📝 A Fun Day on the Internet - The release of a new social media feature for bloggers made a lot of people happy thanks to a few big helpers. - louplummer.lol/a-fun-day…

This is a pickup truck beside a tobacco barn off of Peachtree Rd. in Harnett County, NC. I don’t know who it belongs to or who they are voting for or how they feel about Gaza or FEMA. It just looks cool, so I took this picture. I hope you like it.
Today on App Addict - The Zen Browser - I’ve found myself in a small and unpopular minority over the past couple of years as user and sometimes advocate for Microsoft Edge, mostly because I use it for work where I’m required to use Microsoft Admin Center and the suite of Microsoft 365 apps. I still stand by… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/the-… #Mac Apps 📝

These Subscriptions Are Worth It
These Subscriptions Are Worth It - No I don’t like subscriptions and yes, I wish I didn’t have so many of them, but some of them do add value to my life. Here are five. - linkage.lol/these-sub…

📝 The Joy of Tacos - When you’re feeling blue, get some tacos. You may still be sad, but at least you got some tacos - louplummer.lol/the-joy-o…

📝 Country Music - Commercial, Nashville driven country music is horrible Republican brainwashing and serves the power structure, not the people. - louplummer.lol/country-m…

Today on App Addict - CurrentKey Stats - A Triple Threat App - CurrentKey Stats has several target audiences. • Time tracking your app usage and time spent working. Unlike Apple’s Screentime, CurrentKey Stats only tracks an app when it is in the foreground, not the whole time it is open to give you a more accurate view of your time. • Controlling… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/curr… #Mac Apps 📝

Uncle Tupelo Created a Movement
Uncle Tupelo Created a Movement - Uncle Tupelo is the one band I wish I had gotten to see live and in person before they broke up to from Wilco and Son Volt. - linkage.lol/uncle-tup…

📝 The Real People - To me there is no difference between the people I meet online and the traditional IRL kind. - louplummer.lol/the-real-…

Today on App Addict - Apple Password App Is OK I Guess - I have been using the Apple Passwords App instead of a third-party alternative for a few weeks. I’ve managed to get my work done and not get locked out of any apps, so it’s OK, I guess, but it does not have all the features I’m used to and it… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/appl… #Universal Apps 📝

Who Doesn't Love a Nap
Who Doesn’t Love a Nap - The benefits of napping and some tips for getting a good one in. - linkage.lol/who-doesn…

📝 Wayside Road - There is a short country road in a neighboring county where some of my best memories were made. - louplummer.lol/wayside-r…
Today on App Addict - Daily - A Dead Simple Free Task Manager - The Mac ecosystem is not at a loss for task managers. Apple’s own Reminders app has steadily added features over the years, incorporating things like grocery shopping and adding items via Siri. There are full blown GTD systems for executives and others with super complicated lives like Omnifocus. Then there… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/dail… #Mac Apps 📝

My Favorite Communities on Reddit
My Favorite Communities on Reddit - After 18 years on Reddit, I still go there every day for a mix of tech, politics and practical advice - linkage.lol/my-favori…

This Week's Bookmarks - Funniest Animal Photos, Fat Alaskan Bears, Best of SNL, Great Parents, 2024 Book Awards, A Good Recipe Tool, Baseball Pitchers

2024’s Funniest Animal Wildlife Photos
Fat Bear Week from Katami National park, AK
Our 50 Favorite Saturday Night Live Sketches
People are sharing unforgettable things their parents did for them and we’re taking notes
2024 National Book Awards Finalists Announced - National Book Foundation
How fast could a human being throw a fastball? 106 mph, 110 mph — even 125 mph? - The Athletic
Announcing a new blogging adventure - It’s The Appreciation Challenge - Spread the Love, Interact with a different blogger, new social media contact or even a professional writer each day for a week and then share your experience. It’s a way to build community and encourage others. Repost!
Today on App Addict - Surfed - Fell Off, Drowned - I recently saw an announcement for the release of version 3.0 of the Internet history and bookmarking tool Surfed. Previous app store reviews of the app stated that it had a lot of potential but that it wasn’t a mature product. I had hopes that a new version would correct… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/surf… #Universal Apps 📝

I am dropping my first blogging challenge tomorrow. I’ve designed it to hopefully be a community builder as well as a writing challenge. It’s only going to be a week long and you’ll be able to do meet the daily requirements in just a few minutes. There is no firm deadline to start or stop it.

Some Cool Stuff for Your Computer
Some Cool Stuff for Your Computer - A few things to make your Mac and your iPhone a little more personalized - linkage.lol/some-cool…

📝 The Aromas of Life: A Whiff of Nostalgia and Humor - Aging brings changes, but my sense of smell is still sharp! From backyard barbecues to Wonder Woman’s baking, life’s aromas spark nostalgia and laughter. - louplummer.lol/the-aroma…

Some of the finest seafood in the world is prepared in this little community on the NC/SC border near the Atlantic Ocean called Calabash. Enjoy the sunset from an early fall evening.
Today on App Addict - Find Usernames from 400 Different Social Networks - The username I employ here on Reddit is one that I first used on my AOL account back in the 90s before you could even get a real Internet account in my area. Until recently, I had no idea how many times I’d employed it over the years, at least… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/find… #Mac Apps 📝

The Most Popular Halloween Candy
The Most Popular Halloween Candy - For the first time in 30 years, I am not going to hid on Halloween. To make amends, I’m giving out the best. But what is the best? - linkage.lol/the-most-…

📝 It’s Halloween Again - I’ve hidden from trick-or-treaters for 30 years but in 2024 I’m going to turn over a new leaf. - louplummer.lol/its-hallo…

Castlewellan Forest Park, Northern Ireland - somehow the rainy and overcast day made it look even better!

Today on App Addict - Notenik - A Well Designed Plain Text Notes Plus App - Anyone looking for a well-designed notes app that’s free and open source, native to the Mac platform and based on plain text files would be well served by checking out Notenik by independent developer Herb Bowie.. Within Notenik you can create numerous types of collections of notes including but not… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/note… #Mac Apps 📝

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Beatles
Ladies and Gentlemen - The Beatles - The Beatles have been important to me my whole life and based on their continuing record sales, to a lot of other people too. - linkage.lol/ladies-an…

📝 Learning Languages and Connecting Across Cultures - Reflections on the role of language learning in 2024 for someone who counts themself as a global citizen. - louplummer.lol/learning-…

Sunrise from Wayah Bald in Western North Carolina, an area that could use a disaster relief donation today if you are so inclined. World Central Kitchen
Today on App Addict - A Folder Plugin for Quicklook - I’ve previously covered Quicklook plugins that let you use your spacebar in Finder to view things like package contents, videos, source code, compressed files and more. Recently the developer of the popular bookmarking app, Anybox, released a free Quicklook plugin for folders, which seems like a feature Apple should… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/a-fo… #Mac Apps 📝

If any of y’all want to participate in this month’s Indie Web Carnival, the topic is Multilingualism in a global Web hosted by Zinricky. Internationalism is one of my favorite parts of the Indie Web but, man, am I glad the web decided to use English. Signed - A Lazy American
Today's Link is Literally A Very Good Blog
Today’s Link is Literally A Very Good Blog - Reading A Very Good Blog by Keenan is like having a chocolate milkshake poured in your ear. - linkage.lol/today-s-l…

📝 Memorable Internet Moments - From using Prodigy on an IBM 286 to having the Internet in my pocket, there have been lots of memorable moments. - louplummer.lol/memorable…

Today on App Addict - MacUpdater is Multifeatured - One thing I know about apps designed to identify and download updates for the applications on your Mac, none of them are 100% effective. I use a combination of MacUpdater, Latest, CleanMyMac and Topgrade to come as close as possible to updating my Macs. Of those four, MacUpdate has the… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/macu… #Mac Apps 📝

Who Was Archie Bunker
Who Was Archie Bunker - Archie Bunker was a bigoted white guy from Queens who hated everyone different from himself. We didn’t elect him president for a reason. - linkage.lol/who-was-a…

📝 Reflections on Connections - I saw my oldest friend today, a relationship that goes back to the 70s. It gave me the feels because of course it did. - louplummer.lol/reflectio…

Today on App Addict - EagleFiler - I wanted to create a central repository for all the personal data I’ve generated over the years in one location, searchable within a single program. I have a Gmail account that’s 19 years old with 144K messages. My Evernote account goes back to 2008 and has over 7K notes. In… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/eagl… #Mac Apps 📝
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Updated my /now page with updates on what I’m reading, watching on TV, lots of blog posts, the buy of the week from Amazon and the web sites I added to my personal bookmarks this week.
This Week's Bookmarks - Best 21st Century Movies, New iPhone Photos App, Greatest Soundtracks, Best American Meals, Are You Middle Class, Ai Photorealism of Historical Figures, Janis Joplin's Last Interview

60 of the Best New Cult Classic Movies Released This Century | Lifehacker
How to Customize iOS 18’s Revamped Photos App | Lifehacker
The 101 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time (rollingstone.com)
American Food: The 20 Greatest Dishes
Pew Research Center - Are You in the Middle Class Income Calculator
15 Times This Guy Created Interesting Photos Of Historical Personalities By Using AI | DeMilked
Who Do America's Symbols Belong To
Who Do America’s Symbols Belong To - The flag, the bald eagle and the national anthem aren’t the property of the right wing. - linkage.lol/who-do-am…
📝 Sardines - The humble canned sardine is a lifelong favorite of mine, which has subjected me to a lot of abuse - louplummer.lol/sardines/

Today on App Addict - Opening Batches of Apps, Documents, Folders and Web Pages - There are several ways to batch open workspaces for various projects. The built in Apple tools, Shortcuts and Automator can do it for you if you know how to use them and don’t mind doing a bit of fiddling. Commercial apps like Workspaces ($19.99) have lots of features and a… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/open… #Mac Apps 📝

One of my favorite newsletters is from @assaf@mas.to . He says
Weekend Reading I write a weekly email for people in tech.
Tools and products you should know about, tips about UX, management, infosec; random and funny stuff
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - The 1960 book of awoke America from a bout of collective amnesia and reminded them of the evils of Nazism - linkage.lol/the-rise-…

Today on App Addict - Permute - Powerful, Easy to Use Media Converter for Images, Video and Audio - Permute by Charlie Monroe (developer of Downie) makes media conversion simple regardless of whether you need to manipulate images, video or audio. Its simple drag and drop interface instantly identifies the media you are working with and uses presets to convert the file to the format you want. Permute does… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/perm… #Mac Apps 📝

📝 Family Ties - I lucked out in the family I was born into and the one I married into. Lots of love. No drama. - louplummer.lol/family-ti…

The Worst Movie I Ever Saw
The Worst Movie I Ever Saw - Face/Off, a 1997 thriller by John Woo, starring John Travolta and Nick Cage made me want to stop watching movies forever. - linkage.lol/the-worst…

📝 Hurricanes and Pre-Race Jitters - I’m five hours from home, holed up in a mountain cabin with an ultrarunning grandma getting ready to race 100 miles - louplummer.lol/hurricane…

My wife running on the Virginia Creeper Trail, where she will be competing in the OG Yeti 100 Mile Endurance Run tomorrow.
Today on App Addict - Four Mac Firewall Apps
- Little Snitch
- Lulu
- Radio Silence
- Lockdown Privacy Desktop
The Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway - The Blue Ridge Parkway is the world’s longest linear park running along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in NC and VA. - linkage.lol/the-blue-…

📝 The Murderers I Have Known - As a prison guard in my 20s, I came to know men convicted of murder and later became an anti-death penalty activist - louplummer.lol/the-murde…

I ask strangers if I can take photos of their dogs. They always let me. Not only is this pooch beautiful, she’s also smarter than the Republican candidate for president of the United States.
Today on App Addict - Two Apps for Presentations, Screen Cature Videos or Screen Sharing - German developer Martin Lexow who recently released Polycapture has a couple of other interesting apps for some niche use cases such as screen recording videos for tutorials or other training materials. They may also be useful for anyone doing presentations or extensive screen sharing via Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/two-… #Mac Apps 📝

Concert Movies
Concert Movies - Concert movies make seeing your favorite act possible without having to take out a second mortgage. Here are three classics. - linkage.lol/concert-m…

Saturday Morning Cartoons and Other Joys - Growing up in the 70s gave me the opportunity for some prime TV watching

A photo of the America that scares the insecure, from a Spring evening as I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. This is the melting pot. This is who we are. The fight for white supremacy is a losing battle. The sooner people realize that, the sooner we can make America greater for all its people.
Today on App Addict - Quitter - A Free Utility That Works - I was happy when Raycast implemented a feature that would automatically quit apps after a specified period of inactivity. I was not happy when I found that the feature didn’t work reliable on either my M2 MBA or my M3 iMac. Although I had certain apps set to quite after… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/quit… #Mac Apps 📝

Mastodon Resources for Everyone
Mastodon Resources for Everyone - A list of recommendations of various Mastodon tools, including clients, servers, analytics, tutorials, posting aids and account discovery - linkage.lol/mastodon-…

📝 Using the Mute Button on Social Media - Muting unpleasant topics and people on social media is a must for anyone wanting to enjoy the experience. - louplummer.lol/using-the…

Today on App Addict - Two Apps for Apple Reminders Users - Reminders Menu Bar Access your Apple Reminders from the menu bar without having to open the app with this free attractive Swift app that looks like it’s a native. • All interactions happen through the menu bar interface • Instantly sync with Apple Reminders • Choose the list you… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/two-… #Mac Apps 📝

The Most Famous Blogger
The Most Famous Blogger - Famous Bloggers are from the other web, not the Indy Web but it’s interesting to see what the rest of the Internet is subject to. - linkage.lol/the-most-…

📝 War Movies as Art - I am a peace activist but not a pacifist, a respecter of the sacrifices men and women in uniform make. The art about their efforts is my favorite. - louplummer.lol/what-kind…

Today on App Addict - Sleeve Heads Up Music Player - If your music provider is Spotify, Apple Music, or Doppler, you are in luck because those services are compatible with a delightful heads-up display music player called Sleeve for macOS. Sleeve is an extremely customizable floating interface for controlling and configuring your music playback. When your music is playing, Sleeve… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/slee… #Mac Apps 📝

Fifteen years ago, one of the funniest articles to ever appear online graced our browsers - It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (mcsweeneys.net)
Does anyone know of a way to get the new Apple passwords app to generate a suggested password without having be in Safari? I’d like a way to get a popup within the browser I use or when setting up a new app that wants a password. Mac and iOS.
I just updated my /now page with links to a seminal book on organizing and civil rights, the best TV show currently running, lots of good blog posts, a great Mexican drink and the links I added to my personal bookmarks this week.

Stop macOS 15 Sequoia monthly screen recording prompts - There may be a way to stop the new macOS madness! h/t to @drdrang@mastodon.cloud
Don't Fly with Rock Stars
Don’t Fly with Rock Stars - The skies have claimed a disproportionate number of musicians - linkage.lol/dont-fly-…

📝 Life’s Simple Pleasures - I like quiet weekends at home or on peaceful getaways and don’t need fancy restaurants or crowded concerts to be happy. - louplummer.lol/life-s-si…

Today on App Addict - Polycapture a New and Affordable Next Generation Recording App - This morning, I got a tip from Carlo Zottmann, the developer of Actions for Obsidian. He let my know about Polycapture, a new app he’d just discovered. Instabuy: “PolyCapture for Mac lets you to record webcams, microphones, screens, and apps — individually or simultaneously.”
Record webcams, capture cards, iOS devices,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/poly… #Mac Apps 📝

This Week's Bookmarks - 365 Famous Quotes, Paul Simon Thief, Links Newsletter, Rare Films, Lost TV Show Book, Best Airports, US Journalism

Rhymin' Simon: Not Welcome in East L.A. - WFMU’s Beware of the Blog - The story of how Paul Simon allegedly stole songs from Los Lobos for Graceland
Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends | Caitlin Dewey | Substack
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films
Lost Companion Book Looks Back At All 121 Episodes For Hit Show’s 20th Anniversary - GameSpot
The North American airports that travelers find the most – and least – satisfying | CNN
Debate in nuclear-armed former colony fails to reassure global community | US Election 2024 | Al Jazeera - a scathing takedown of the way we talk about other countries and ourselves
A Talented Multi-Blogger
A Talented Multi-Blogger - The many websites of Michael Burkhardt a talented writer and polymath from the heartland of America. - linkage.lol/a-talente…

📝 Overthinkers Anonymous - Overthinking all the time and having a busy mind are separable if you learn a few things about yourself. - louplummer.lol/overthink…

Today on App Addict - Dato - A Full Featured Menu Bar Calendar - Dato by indy developer Sindre Sorhus is a powerful multi-featured menu bar calendar app that complements full featured calendars like Fantastical or Busy Cal. Like most apps by this developer, it is remarkable for the customization options and the way it fulfills so many needs. You have your choice of… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/2024… #Mac Apps 📝

American Dialects
American Dialects - As a southerner, I am aware of my own accent, but there are a variety of them across the country. - linkage.lol/american-…

📝 Physician Heal Thyself - I’m a computer guy with a laptop that doesn’t want to act right, and everybody thinks it’s funny. - louplummer.lol/physician…

Today on App Addict - IINA - Free and Open-Source Video Player - I have been installing VLC on computers at work for over 20 years, it’s been a standard part of the image in K12 and higher ed schools for such a long time because it just works. You can throw just about any type of video file at it and… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/iina… #Mac Apps 📝

Exposing the Manosphere
Exposing the Manosphere - The Manosphere is a toxic hellstew of women and trans hating incels. Know your enemy. - linkage.lol/exposing-…

📝 Why Do You Blog - Sometimes asking why reveals surprising answers - louplummer.lol/why-do-yo…

Today on App Addict - Neat Download Manager - When it comes to downloading from the internet there are several different scenarios. There is downloading torrent files and their payloads which requires a special application like Folx or qbittorrent to manage. Then there are specialized downloaders for video/audio content like Downie and ClipGrab. Then there are the run of… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/neat… #Mac Apps 📝

Office Space
Office Space - The 1999 movie, Office Space, is a cult classic and still relatable today - linkage.lol/office-sp…

📝 Army Tales - A couple of tales from the 1980s peacetime Army and the lax security we had back then. - louplummer.lol/army-tale…

Today on App Addict - The Time Machine Mechanic - I have been using a Backup Status widget to keep track of my Time machine backups but with the release of Sequoia it has stopped functioning. The next best tool in my arsenal to monitor backups is The Time Machine Mechanic, a free utility from the Eclectic Light Company. The… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/the-… #Mac Apps 📝

Ketamine Therapy for Depression
Ketamine Therapy for Depression - Ketamine infusions for treatment resistant depression promise new hope for long time sufferers. - linkage.lol/ketamine-…

📝 I’m Not Moving - The place where I have lived for 45 years has both changed and stayed the same and I’ll probably never leave. - louplummer.lol/i-m-not-m…

Today on App Addict - Whatever Happened to Evernote - Evernote was once a giant of an app, beloved by millions and one of the first cross platform tools to achieve widespread use. The productivity culture adored it and people like Tiago Forte, the author Building a Second Brain, made it central to their methodology. The company was sold to… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/what… 📝

The Irish Don't Want to Hear It
The Irish Don’t Want to Hear It - There are six times the number of people with Irish heritage on the US than there are in Ireland. The real Irish don’t want to hear about your great-grandpa. - linkage.lol/the-irish…

📝 What Do You Do on That Thing All Day - A day in the life of my laptop - louplummer.lol/what-do-y…

Today on App Addict - Cork for Homebrew - I’ve been experimenting with GUI apps for Homebrew this year. Whenever I’ve posted about them, other have encouraged me to try Cork, by independent developer David Bureš, and so I purchased a license a few weeks ago and I have been using it ever since. Installation was straightforward but I… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/cork… #Mac Apps 📝

The Mac Operating System in the Modern Era
The Mac Operating System in the Modern Era - The 21st version of macOS is being released this week. Here is a look at the history of the modern Mac operating system. - linkage.lol/the-mac-o…

I updated my now page - with links to a classic American biography, the best TV show playing, lots of blog posts, my Amazon find of the week and all the sites I bookmarked.

Today on App Addict - iTerm - You Don’t Have to Be a Developer to Use It - I’m not a developer but I do like to use Homebrew and make tweaks to my system that require frequent use of the Terminal. I’m a long-time user of iTerm 2 which is perfect for a user like me.
Some of the features I enjoy are: • Finder integration via… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/iter… #Mac Apps 📝

This Week's Bookmarks- Greatest Actor, Life Hacks, The Falling Man, Has Anyone Ever, Book Awards, Greedy CEOs, Monetizing a Blog
📝 New Apple Stuff and the Regular People - Those of us looking forward to updating our Apple devices are the minority and we are the abnormal ones - louplummer.lol/new-apple…

Reasons Not to Enlist in the Military
Reasons Not to Enlist in the Military - As a veteran and the father of two who enlisted, I would never advise a young person to join up for a number of reasons. - linkage.lol/reasons-n…

📝 On Working - Even though American workers are often exploited and lacking in protections, there is still value in having a good work ethic. - louplummer.lol/on-workin…

Today on App Addict - Five Free Single Purpose Apps - • Dockey is an app that controls a few dock preferences: position, show/hide, animation speed, show/hide speed. Some of these choices are available in System settings. Others require you to run a terminal command unless you use something like Dockey. • Hyperduck by indy developer Sindre Sorhus is an app… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/five… #Mac Apps 📝
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Big Hump Mountain in the Roan Highlands along the NC/TN border on the Appalachian Trail. I crossed it on a cold September morning with wind blowing so hard I could barely stand up. #photography.
Coffee and Me
Coffee and Me - I’ve been a coffee drinker since high school, and I’ve gone to some extremes to maintain the habit. - linkage.lol/coffee-an…

📝 The Last Bottle of Bourbon - Written for the IndyWeb Carnival’s Suicide Prevention Month Campaign, I describe me own recovery from life’s lowest point. - louplummer.lol/power-und…

Today on App Addict - Noizio - A Background Sound App for Mac - I recently discovered an app that I use on my iMac at work for background sounds. Noizio, an app from developer Kyrylo Kovalin has a free and paid version. the free version offers five nature sounds that can be combined into 25 distinct tracks. The paid version is $9.99 in… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/2024… #Mac Apps 📝

Remembering Tony Soprano
Remembering Tony Soprano - The Sopranos (1999-2006) was one of the greatest television shows ever and the characters portrayed some of the most memorable. - linkage.lol/rememberi…

📝 Freelancing in the Old Days - Back in the 90s I was a freelance computer guy who did everything from hardware repairs to business setups. It was eventful. - louplummer.lol/freelanci…

Today on App Addict - XnConvert - Free Batch Image Converter and Editor - XnConvert is a free and powerful application for batch editing and conversion of graphics files. It can handle 500 different kinds of input files and it outputs over 70 different formats. It allows you to save any task sequence of combined settings to include edits, output format, naming convention and… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/xnco… #Mac Apps 📝

Stream Team - An Indy Web Gem
Stream Team - An Indy Web Gem - Stream Team is an IndyWeb Community where you can get real informed opinions on the best stuff to watch. - linkage.lol/stream-te…

📝 What’s in a Name - How I escaped from a Johnny Cash song to become the man I am today. - louplummer.lol/what-s-in…

Today on App Addict - Wins Has Window Management and More - I’ve never found a use for most window management tools. I work on a laptop at home and run most apps maximized. At work I have two gigantic displays and in instances where I need to reference two apps at once, I just slide over to the other display. There… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/wins… #Mac Apps 📝

Alcatraz
Alcatraz - Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay had a short run as a prison but is the home of legendary stories. - linkage.lol/alcatraz/

📝 Born a Rockefeller - I’ve known since her middle school years that my oldest daughter was destined for a remarkable life - louplummer.lol/born-a-ro…

Today on App Addict - Badgeify - Notifications in Your Menu Bar - In today’s connected environment notifications can be vital or they can be an unwelcome hinderance. It’s different for each individual. Personally, I don’t get so many that it interferes with my work, and I prefer to find out someone is attempting to contact me as soon as possible. I operate… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/badg… #Mac Apps 📝

The Funniest Sites on the Internet
The Funniest Sites on the Internet - A list of places to make you laugh when you are bored or sad - linkage.lol/the-funni…

📝 How to Get Lots of Internet Points - Getting lots of “engagement” on your “content” is gross. Just be a good writer about interesting stuff and follow IndyWeb principles. - louplummer.lol/how-to-ge…

Today on App Addict - Try PDF Gear, It’s Good, It’s Free - When it comes to PDF software, people have very different needs. Some casual users may want nothing more than the ability to make a few notes and occasionally combine documents, while those working in legal offices are very, very particular about how their PDFs look on screen and when printed,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/try-… #Universal Apps 📝
This Week's Bookmarks - Best Cereal, Best TV Ever, Win at Radio, Rare Maps, Netflix, Naps, Evil Trump Stuff

The 50 Best Breakfast Cereals Of All Time (complex.com)
The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time (rollingstone.com)
How to Win Radio Contests | WIRED
Current Inventory - Boston Rare Maps
Four Different Types of Naps (and How to Choose One) | Lifehacker
Why Trump’s Arlington Debacle Is So Serious - The Atlantic (archive.ph)
Updated my /now page with the book I’m reading, the TV show we’re watching, what tastes good this week, what I wrote, where I went on the Internet.
Minor League Baseball
Minor League Baseball - Minor League baseball is an affordable and accessible family activity and can build fond memories - linkage.lol/minor-lea…

📝 Easy Things vs. Hard Things - We all decided what skills make a person an exceptional athlete, but what about other talents and shortcomings? - louplummer.lol/easy-thin…

Today on App Addict - Activity Watch - Free No Effort Time Tracker - Activity Watch is a free no effort time tracker that can keep track of how long you use every app on you Mac while running in the background. You can categorize your apps so that you can see how much time you spent working, gaming, choosing music or watching video…. - apps.louplummer.lol/post/acti… 📝

Ramen is Classy
Ramen is Classy - Once a staple of poor college students and prison inmates, ramen is today a respected restaurant dish - linkage.lol/ramen-is-…

📝 Breaking Things - I have a history of fighting computers until the wee hours of the morning after breaking them after questionable decisions - louplummer.lol/breaking-…

Today on App Addict - Topgrade - Upgrade All the Things - One of the more useful Homebrew apps I’ve found is topgrade-rs, the currently maintained fork of topgrade, an updater for Homebrew, the Mac App Store, MacOS, VSCode extensions and Rust. It is supremely easy to use. Just enter the command topgrade in Terminal and sit back while it does the… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/topg… 📝

The 101st Stranger - I found a long-lost photo today from when I was working on my 100 Strangers project. This is Steve, a street guy whom I gave $2 and made him promise not to spend it on food.
Tattoo Facts
Tattoo Facts - A full third of Americans have at least one tattoo and people have benn getting them for over 5,000 years. - linkage.lol/tattoo-fa…

📝 Non-Toxic Masculinity - Testosterone fueled chest thumping and belittling behaviors aren’t required and aren’t appreciated - louplummer.lol/non-toxic…

Today on App Addict - Haste - A Web Search Utility - Haste, by Plastic Software, is a keyboard centric search utility that can access a wide variety of websites without you having to manually switch to your browser and type a URL or access a bookmark. You activate the search by tapping the command key twice. Then you enter the text… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/hast… #Mac Apps 📝

Slow Horses - The Books
Slow Horses - The Books - The hit TV show, Slow Horses, is based on a series of spy novels by Mick Herron about misfit MI5 agents led by Jackson Lamb. - linkage.lol/slow-hors…

📝 Books and More Books, Never Enough - I am a lifelong reader of a great variety of books, lowbrow and highbrow and I’ll never have enough of them. - louplummer.lol/books-and…

Today on App Addict - MacTube - An Ad-Free YouTube Player and More - Mac Tube is an ad-free YouTube player currently also supporting AppleTV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Max, Disney+, Peacock, Tubi and CrunchyRoll as well as Vimeo, Twitch, Ted Talks, BigThink and TikTok. The developer’s website doesn’t it make it clear, but the Mac App Store version of the app, known… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/pear… #Mac Apps 📝

Apple Watch Fall Detection and My Latest Accident
Apple Watch Fall Detection and My Latest Accident - Apple Watches from Series 4 on up feature a robust and valuable fall detection feature that activated for me after an accident. - linkage.lol/apple-wat…
Everyone Talks About the Weather
📝 Everyone Talks About the Weather - We may feel like we are in control of our environment, but mother nature has ways to prove that to be a fallacy. - louplummer.lol/everyone-…

Today on App Addict - Keyboard Cowboy - Free and Open-Source Automation Software - If you’d like to take a crack at setting up some Mac automations without spending the money that Keyboard Maestro ($36) or Better Touch Tool ($24) will run you, then you should download and try Keyboard Cowboy, a free and open-source automation tool available from the dev’s Github site. It… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/keyb… #Mac Apps 📝

Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control. Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed. — Cat Valente
This Week's Bookmarks - The Future, Lost Birds, Past Maps, The Beatles, Gen Z, iPhone Privacy, Download Movie Sounds

50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974 - The New Stack
Pastmaps: Maps for Historical Research
The Beatles Media File : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Understanding Gen Z in the workplace: Characteristics and values (hibob.com)
How to Limit How Much Your iPhone and Apps Track You | Lifehacker
Moustaches Everywhere
Moustaches Everywhere - The moustache has made a comeback, and I didn’t know it until I traveled away from provincial little city - linkage.lol/moustache…

My Partner
📝 My Partner - I think my wife is awesome and she just keeps getting better. - louplummer.lol/my-partne…

Today on App Addict - ClipGrab, a free alternative to Downie - I am partial to Downie when it comes to downloading video from the Internet, but I recently discovered a good free alternative for those looking to use something without incurring a cost. ClipGrab is a video downloader for YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Daily Motion and many other sites. It downloads and… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/clip… #Mac Apps 📝 #Blaugust2024

People and Blogs
People and Blogs - The newsletter and website, People and Blogs, by Italian blogger, Manu, offers some of the best the IndyWeb has to offer - linkage.lol/people-an…
How to Be Yourself and Get Along Online
📝 How to Be Yourself and Get Along Online - You can do two contradictory things and still have flourishing online relationships by taking some ancient advice - louplummer.lol/how-to-be…

Today on App Addict - Air Battery - A Free App to Monitor Battery Levels - My search for a good multi-device battery monitoring app ended today when I discovered Air Battery. In just a few minutes I had a widget installed in notification center with accurate battery readouts of my Macbook, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. I didn’t have to install any client apps, just… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/air-… #MacApps 📝

How a Raging Atheist Like Me Became an Ordained Minister and Wedding Officiant
How a Raging Atheist Like Me Became an Ordained Minister and Wedding Officiant - The story of my online ordination as a minister in the Universal Life Church and subsequent career performing marriages - linkage.lol/universal…

This Japanese Maple was only a couple of feet tall when my grandmother died. It was in her yard. My grandfather dug it up & gave it to me. Twenty-nine years later it greets me every time I walk out my front door. I love it.
A Curated Collection of Free Software
A Curated Collection of Free Software - A collection of reviews and links to free Mac software - linkage.lol/a-curated…

Today on App Addict - A Curated Collection of Free Apps - Free Apps• Apparency - The Apps That Opens Apps • ToyViewer - A Preview Replacment • Chrome Remote Desktop - Free Remote Control • BBEdit - It Doesn’t Suck • Blip - Free Cross Platform File Transfers • FreeTube - Maybe the Most Underrated App • Bean - A Free,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/a-cu… #Mac Apps 📝
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Osa the Dog and the Last Goodbye
📝 Osa the Dog and the Last Goodbye - Sad news reunites a family to say goodbye to a beloved member. - louplummer.lol/osa-the-d…

Dazed and Confused
Dazed and Confused - The 1993 movie Dazed and Confused is regarded as a classic today for its realistic depiction of the lives of high school students in the 1970s. - linkage.lol/dazed-and… #Blaugust2024

People Watching in Austin
📝 People Watching in Austin- A day spent traveling and tooling around one of America’s coolest cities provided excellent opportunities to watch people do their thing. - louplummer.lol/people-wa… #Blaugust2024

Today on App Addict - Widget Wall - For the first time in years, I’ve started using my Mac’s desktop as a place to check for information and interact with my computer. For a long time, I kept the desktop hidden behind windows and full screen apps. I don’t save files to my desktop or launch applications from… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/widg… #Mac Apps 📝 #Blaugust2024

We Are the Stories We Tell
📝 We Are the Stories We Tell - Each of us is a collection of stories, our own and the ones we’ve collected through the years - louplummer.lol/we-are-th… #Blaugust2024

Today on App Addict - Screen Memory - I recently purchased the single purpose utility, Screen Memory on sale from Bundle Hunt for $6. On the developer’s website it goes for $27 and can be used on up to three computers. The app takes screenshots of your entire monitor (or monitors) at a predetermined interval. The default is… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/scre… #Mac Apps 📝 #Blaugust2024

The Modern Martyrs
The Modern Martyrs - You’ve heard it said that people died for the right to vote - well here they are, by name. - linkage.lol/the-moder… #Blaugust2024
How do I get a post to show up in the Writing feed on Discover here at Micro.blog? I have tagged entries with the 📝 emoji and assigned them to the category of Writing but they never get added to the feed.
Going to Texas
✏️ Going to Texas - I have a trip planned to Austin, TX where I’m going to eat Tex-Mex and barbecue, visit HEB and Half-Price Books and enjoy my family. - louplummer.lol/going-to-… #Blaugust2024

What's In Your Menu Bar
Today on App Addict - What’s In Your Menu Bar - What is in your menu bar?
At Macworld 2014, Mac Developer Brett Terpstra turned heads when he revealed what he had running in his menu bar while sharing his screen. In all, he had 42 menu bar icons and people were amazed because he was on a MacBook Air with… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/what… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
You've Got to Go to Key West
You’ve Got to Go to Key West - The tourist destination of Key West, Florida should be on everyone’s bucket list of unique American destinations. - linkage.lol/youve-got… #Blaugust2024
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” ~ E.E. Cummings
Sportsball
📝 Sportsball - I’m a cranky sports fan with standards and judgements galore, but I still enjoy them. - louplummer.lol/sportsbal… #Blaugust2024

One of my favorite quotes of all time - When I’m in a slump, I comfort myself by saying if I believe in dinosaurs, then somewhere, they must be believing in me. And if they believe in me, then I can believe in me. Then I bust out. - Mookie Wilson, New York Mets, Left Field
My 10 Favorite Cross-Platform Apps
📝 Today on App Addict - My 10 Favorite Cross-Platform Apps - Here are my favorite apps that have both a macOS and an iOS/iPadOS version. Drafts I use Drafts for a great number of tasks. I collect quotes there until I am ready to process them into my collection. Whenever i need to convert HTML into markdown, it’s as simple as… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/my-1… #Universal Apps #Blaugust2024
Good Alternative Software for Everyone
Good Alternative Software for Everyone - Free and low-priced alternatives to expensive software from mega-corporations - linkage.lol/good-alte… #Blaugust2024
What Do You Do for Fun
📝 What Do You Do for Fun - An analysis of what passes for fun in my life and what doesn’t - louplummer.lol/what-do-y… #Blaugust2024

Battle of the Bookmark Managers
Today on App Addict - Battle of the Bookmark Managers - Aside from browsers, I have several apps on my hard drive for collecting and organizing bookmarks: • Goodlinks (also has read it later features) • Bookmarks • One Bookmark • Raindrop.io
There are many more with Anybox and Pinboard and its various clients also being very popular.
My personal favorite,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/batt… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

I’m a little late this week, but here’s my /now page with a funny-ass book, a bloody TV show, lot’s of blogging goodness, links and app reviews plus a gift idea for your favorite #ultrarunning enthusiast.

My Backup Strategy

📝 Everyone eventually suffers a data loss, either from a hardware failure, a rouge application, user error or some mystery cause. The only effective solution is a good backup strategy. It’s up to you how much energy and time you want to put into it. The way you use your computer will dictate what kind of tools you want to use.
Everyone who uses a Mac should have a Time Machine backup drive. My primary home computer is a laptop, so I don’t leave the external Time Machine connected all the time, but i do connect it every night. This gives me a restore point for every day on the calendar if I need to recover some missing files, as well as a way to restore my entire computer in case of drive failure.
Once a month I use the drive cloning app, SuperDuper to make a bootable backup of my entire hard drive. I keep that in my car when I am not using it in case something catastrophic happens to the house.
I also take full advantage of cloud storage accounts. All of my photos are copied to iCloud Photos, Google Photos and Amazon Photos. My documents folder is synced with iCloud and while there is a difference between backup and syncing, it does provide a second copy of what’s currently on my hard drive.
One of my most valuable (to me) sets of documents are my blog archives. I have multiple backups of them, including a synced copy on Google Drive, a copy on Obsidian Sync and a copy on GitHub.
Aside from my personal laptop, I also use a Mac at work. I use Google Drive and One Drive to sync files between the two devices, primarily my downloads folder to save myself the hassle of having to download things on both machines.
Use This Curse on Your Worst Enemy - If I could do one thing to my worst enemy, I would make him self-centered.

Just a Reminder That Facebook is Evil
Just a Reminder That Facebook is Evil - Facebook and other Meta apps are invasive, privacy invading, hate filled platforms that harm minors. Just a reminder. - linkage.lol/just-a-re… #Blaugust2024

Avoid Mackup If Running Sonoma or Later
Today on App Addict - Avoid Mackup If Running Sonoma or Later - A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on r/MacApps for a utility that purported to back up your preferences for a large number of apps, including perennial favorites Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, Bartender, Text Expander and others. The name of the utility is Mackup and it is available on… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/avoi… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

The Real History of the Buffalo Wing
The Real History of the Buffalo Wing - The history of the Buffalo wing, a recipe and the surprisingly huge (82k) Reddit devoted to the dish - linkage.lol/the-real-… #Blaugust2024

The Perfect Blogger
📝 The Perfect Blogger - The perfect blogger is an original, opinionated observer and explainer of the exciting and the mundane. - louplummer.lol/the-perfe… #Blaugust2024

Rambox - A Browser for Apps
Today on App Addict - Rambox - A Browser for Apps - I took advantage of an offer at AppSumo this week to get a lifetime license to Rambox Pro for $5 (discontinued). It’s normally $5.83 a month, although the free version has most of the paid features minus extension support and syncing between devices. Rambox is a specialized Chromium browser designed… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/ramb… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

This Week's Bookmarks - YouTube Enhancement, Animal Game, Word Association, Best Delis, How to Sleep, Privacy Tools, iPhone Photography

Surf YouTube Like It’s TV Channels
WildGuesser - Guess The Animal
The Internet’s Largest Word Association Game
The Best Deli in Every State | Find a Delicatessen Near You (tasteofhome.com)
How to sleep better while traveling - The Washington Post
The Best Privacy Tools, Services, and Ad-Free Recommendations - Privacy Guides
2024 Winning Photographers – IPPAWARDS | iPhone Photography Awards
Looking for the Little Things
📝 Looking for the Little Things - Life is absolutely full to brimming of little pleasures if we will slow down and recognize them. - louplummer.lol/looking-f… #Blaugust2024

Free and Cheap Tools for Bloggers
Free and Cheap Tools for Bloggers - Graphics, Writing Aids, Analytics, HTML and CSS Help and other tools for bloggers all for free or cheap - linkage.lol/free-and-… #Blaugust2024

11 Plugins for QuickLook
Today on App Addict - 11 Plugins for QuickLook - One of my favorite features of macOS is QuickLook, activated by pressing the spacebar when you have a file highlighted in the Finder, it enables you to view the contents of a file without having to open an application. The problem is that there are many file types that don’t… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/11-p… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

Cloudhiker - StumbleUpon for the IndyWeb
Cloudhiker - StumbleUpon for the IndyWeb - A randomized recommendation based tool for discovering and sharing new high-quality websites and blogs - linkage.lol/cloudhike… #Blaugust2024

Brothers and Sister
Brothers and Sister - My two brothers and my sister are smart, kind, virtuous people. I want you to meet them. - louplummer.lol/brothers-… #Blaugust2024

A Few GUI Tools for the Homebrew Curious
Today on App Addict - A Few GUI Tools for the Homebrew Curious - If you’d like to explore some of what’s available in macOS through Homebrew, the command line package manager but you are a little intimidated by the terminal, you are in luck. There are some apps with graphical user interfaces to help you see what’s available, what you have installed and… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/a-fe… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

The Best Watermelons in the World
The Best Watermelons in the World - The watermelon is the world’s best fruit, and the best ones are grown along Bogue Sound in North Carolina - linkage.lol/the-best-… #Blaugust2024

I Am Not Proud
I Am Not Proud - How not caring what other people think about me and not competing in imaginary contests is a benefit. - louplummer.lol/i-am-not-… #Blaugust2024

The Most Underrated Native Mac Utility
Today on App Addict - The Most Underrated Native Mac Utility - The native Mac tools are great but most of them can be replaced with third-party apps that add extra features. Even the geeky apps like Terminal and Activity Monitor have apps like iTerm and Smotrite to serve as alternatives. There is one app though that I think is perfect the… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/the-… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

Dachshunds are the best dogs. I did a study and that’s my conclusion. Fight me.

Let's Talk About White People
Let’s Talk About White People - A white guy looks at what it means to be white in 2024, what it’s meant in the past and what a hopeful future looks like - louplummer.lol/lets-talk… #Blaugust2024

ImageOptim - Free and Open-Source Utility to Reduce File Sizes
Today on App Addict - ImageOptim - Free and Open-Source Utility to Reduce File Sizes - ImageOptim is a tiny utility that every Mac user should have in their toolkit. It integrates a half dozen image optimization tools behind the scenes to quickly and efficiently provide an optimum file size without quality loss, including MozJPEG, pngquant, Pngcrush, 7zip, SVGO and Google Zopfli. As part of the… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/imag… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

The Devil's Tramping Ground
The Devil’s Tramping Ground - A 40-ft circle of bare earth in the central North Carolina woods has been reputed to be haunted for over 300 years. - linkage.lol/the-devil… #Blaugust2024

What a Day
What a Day - The first day of classes at my university job was stressful mixed with mishap and disappointment - louplummer.lol/what-a-da… #Blaugust2024
Mind Node for Mind Maps
Today on App Addict - Mind Node for Mind Maps - I’ve used the Mac and iPadOS versions of Mind Node mind mapping software for about 10 years. I checked my documents folder and found mind maps for deploying different versions of Mac OS X server when that was a thing, plus deployment plans for new laptop models, tech support documents… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/mind… #Universal Apps #Blaugust2024
A friend and I have a hand curated blog directory and we are looking to add more personal blogs of all types: Art, Gaming, History, Links, Music, Photography, Resources, Science, Tech, Travel, Writers and Poets. Please stop by and add your blog to the list!
Free Roaming Horses in the Eastern US
Free Roaming Horses in the Eastern US - There are wild horses in several eastern states in the US which can be seen and visited by those interested. - linkage.lol/free-roam… #Blaugust2024
Learning Lessons, Lessons Learned
Learning Lessons, Lessons Learned - Lessons learned from organizing in a totally different era help navigate the current political climate. - louplummer.lol/learning-… #Blaugust2024

Better late than never, I updated my /now page - news on what I’m reading, writing, watching, enjoying and bookmarking
This Week's Bookmarks - Common Misconceptions, Spurious Correlations, Mushrooms, Best Movies of the 2000s, Woodstock, Horse Breeds, Image Prompting

List of common misconceptions - Wikipedia
Say What You See — Google Arts & Culture
Spurious Correlations (tylervigen.com)
The Best Movies of the 2000s, According to IndieWire Editors
Best Woodstock Performances: Hendrix, The Who & More at 1969 Festival (archive.ph)
These remarkable horse breeds are like no other on Earth (cnn.com)
24 Hour Wallpaper from Jetson Creative
Today on App Addict - 24 Hour Wallpaper from Jetson Creative - I don’t see my desktop during my working moments, but when I lock my computer, I have a different wallpaper displayed on each of my monitors. I also have a Keyboard Maestro macro that runs when I unlock my computer and hides all open apps for privacy reasons in case… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/24-h… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
Moderates, liberals, progressives and radicals need to keep their eyes on the prize and not their fingers pointed at each other. If you think tearing down statues is wrong, then don’t tear down any statues. If you think fighting fascists in the street is wrong, then stay on the sidewalk but stay in the struggle. Conversely don’t impose any purity test on middle aged folks who are frightened but still committed to ending white supremacy and the abdication of presidential responsibility. We are all in this together and the enemy of our enemy is our friend. - Me in a 2020 organizing letter
The Golden Age of Piracy
The Golden Age of Piracy - The Golden Age of Piracy was a 70-year period during which men like Blackbeard terrorized the seas. They have been memorialized in books and film. - linkage.lol/golden-ag… #Blaugust2024
Brand Loyalties
Brand Loyalties - I examine the effect of marketing on my tech, car, eating and clothing purchases. - louplummer.lol/brand-loy… #Blaugust2024
Bitcoin is 15 years old.
To put that in perspective: The web started in 1991. 15 years later, in 2006, we had youtube, twitter, amazon, ebay - the world was unrecognisable. What have we got in that timeframe from #blockchain? Ashes. “A thriving market for magic beans doesn’t make the magic beanstalk real." - lib.rs
Start from Innovative Bytes
Today on App Addict - Start from Innovative Bytes - Start by Innovative Bytes is an app launcher with extra features that make it different enough from FolderPeek and XMenu to be worth checking out. Like the other two apps, it offers a way to access your favorite apps, folders, files and URLs from the menu bar. It also lets… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/star… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
Making a More Accessible Web
Making a More Accessible Web - Making your website more accessible is a process you can start today with a free shortcut and a couple of good guides. - linkage.lol/making-a-… #Blaugust2024
The Random Joy Blogging Brings
The Random Joy Blogging Brings - Completing a blog post is much more than checking off a task on a to do list, it’s a chance for all types of joy. - louplummer.lol/random-jo… #Blaugust2024
Almighty - Tweaking and Utility Collection
Today on App Addict - Almighty - Tweaking and Utility Collection - Almighty, a collection of tweaks and utilities bundled into one app is by Khoa Pham, the same developer behind the popular low-priced clipboard manager PastePal. There are 50 different settings and utilities in the app, and you can enable and disable at will. They can be launched from the menu… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/almi… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in - Nick Cave
Free Software from an Indy Superstar Developer
Free Software from an Indy Superstar Developer - Indy Developer Sindre Sorhus is a full-time open-source developer of many free Mac and iOS apps - linkage.lol/free-soft… #Blaugust2024
School Days
School Days - Seeing all the kids going back to school sparked good memories for me - louplummer.lol/school-da… #Blaugust2024

FlowVision - Image Viewer
Today on App Addict - FlowVision - Image Viewer - After seeing the developer of FlowVison, a free image viewer for macOS, post about his new app on Reddit, I downloaded it and have been using it for the past week. The app has a Finder style interface similar to what you see when you enable icon view and enlarge… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/2024… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

The Story Behind My 100 Strangers Project
The Story Behind My 100 Strangers Project - Over 100 days I published a collection of street portraits taken in six different cities where I interviewed each subject. - louplummer.lol/100-stran…

England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.
by Brian Bilston
The Quest Guy, an IndyWeb MVP
The Quest Guy, an IndyWeb MVP - The many web sites and adventures of an IndyWeb stalwart and all-around good guy, blogger and quester, R. Scott Jones - linkage.lol/the-quest… #Blaugust2024

Our Community
Our Community - My surprised delight to find myself in the midst of creators and thinkers and being accepted and welcomed on the IndyWeb - louplummer.lol/our-commu… #Blaugust2024
From my 100 Strangers Project - for the last time. John, watching his friend lose to a Budweiser drinking chess hustler on the Raleigh sidewalk was the final subject in my project. I’ll be posting a link to a gallery of all 100 portraits later on today. Thanks for all your feedback.
Folder Peek FTW
Today on App Addict - Folder Peek FTW - Folder Peek by heroic Indy Developer Sindre Sorhus is the GOAT of menu bar access apps. I liked XMenu from Devon Technologies, but Folder Peek has more features and is just as rock solid in performance. Folder Peek lets you put folders full of whatever you want on your menu… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/fold… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
Tomorrow is the day that I will post the 100th Stranger in my street portrait series. For the first time in almost 10 years I will have an online gallery where all the photos can be viewed together. I appreciate all the positive feedback I’ve gotten. It made me feel like a photographer again
You Died of Dysentery
You Died of Dysentery - The origins and surprising history of the Oregon Trail computer game - linkage.lol/you-died-… #Blaugust2024
Can anyone suggest a good Lemmy server? Trying to avoid right-wingers and crypto-bros. Looking for something tech oriented.
I Just Gotta Be Me
I Just Gotta Be Me - The reasons why having a wide-open autobiographical style of blogging works for me. - louplummer.lol/i-just-go… #Blaugust2024
From My 100 Strangers Project - Ricardo and his five-year old twins (yes, there are two of them in the photo) were downtown on a rainy winter afternoon looking for some hot chocolate at the local coffee shop. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I joined them.
App Tamer from St. Claire Software
Today on App Addict - App Tamer from St. Claire Software - St. Claire software makes an app that can help control heat and fan noise, extend your battery time and increase the amount of CPU power available for you frontmost application. App Tamer comes preconfigured to automatically reduce the CPU and battery usage of Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Spotlight, Time Machine,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/app-… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024
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I think Apple can either take a commission on all commerce they want on the App Store or they can be the exclusive place to get software for you iPhone and iPad, but they cannot be both. - Matt Birchler on Bitchtree
Mastodon Tools
Mastodon Tools - Three tools for finding new people to follow on Mastodon and for analyzing your account activity. - linkage.lol/mastodon-… #Blaugust2024
Traveling Man
Traveling Man - My past and future travel plans and all the reasons I’ve had to explore - louplummer.lol/traveling… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Mike said he was on the way back to his downtown office after a 30-mile ride out in the country.
BatchMod - Classic Utility, Abandoned But Still Partly Functional
Today on App Addict - BatchMod - Classic Utility, Abandoned But Still Partly Functional - Back in the days when Apple still made hardware servers and an operating system to go with them (at $1K a copy) we used to have to deal with hundreds of user home directories in my line of work as a K-12 system admin. Most users files got deleted at… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/batc… #Blaugust2024

Awesome Self Hosted
Awesome Self Hosted - Links to dozens of self-hosting solutions to replace SaaSS providers - linkage.lol/awesome-s… #Blaugust2024
A Man Shopping
A Man Shopping - My relationship with shopping from the mallrat days of the 80s through the Amazon age - louplummer.lol/a-man-sho… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Elise was selling art, mostly pencil drawings and watercolors, at a street fair in Raleigh. She said businesses had been pretty good, but she was hot and tired and ready to go home.
SilentKnight - Free Security Checks for Your Mac
Today on App Addict - SilentKnight - Free Security Checks for Your Mac - SilentKnight from The Eclectic Light Company is a free utility to check the security settings of your Mac. it will let you know of any uninstalled security upadtea you may be missing and offer to download and install them from you. It’s often better to run these updates from Software… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/sile… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

“Without labor nothing prospers.” — Sophocles
No celebrating the grind life, celebrating all the workers who actually make stuff, the under-appreciated bedrock of society.
A Great Search Engine for the Indy Web - Submit Your Site
A Great Search Engine for the Indy Web - Submit Your Site - Searchmysite.net is a niche search engine for the Indy Web that contains ad free user submitted content - linkage.lol/a-great-s… #Blaugust2024
Tattoos Tell a Story
Tattoos Tell a Story - The story of my three tattoos, all gotten under very different circumstances - louplummer.lol/tattoos-t… #Blaugust2024

Time for an update to my /now page with info on a great book by Scottish writer James Rebanks, a TV show about ancient Rome, links to all of this week’s blog posts, an alternative to streaming music and all of the pages I bookmarked this week.
This Week's Bookmarks - Sandwiches, Movies, Alcohol Preferences, Abandoned Buildings, Books, Warhol, Computer OS
List of sandwiches - Wikipedia
How Going to the Movies Is Changing, in Charts - WSJ
Charted: Alcohol Preferences Around the World (visualcapitalist.com)
12 of the world’s most fascinating abandoned buildings (bbc.com)
Find Your Next Favorite Book - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Rare Digital Portrait by Andy Warhol for Sale for $26 Million | PetaPixel
50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution • The Register
From my 100 Strangers Project - Shayonna and her sisters were handing out flyers for a fundraiser to benefit a foundation that helps people in need in their community.

Paletro - Add a Command Palette to Any App
Today on App Addict - Paletro - Add a Command Palette to Any App - Paletro, by appmakes.io, is a $6.99 utility that gives you a command palette in any app. Large, multifunction apps with many commands like VScode, Sublime Text or Obsidian can have dozens of menu commands and good luck to the intrepid user who tries to remember them all. That’s why those… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/pale… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

A group of instructors from the Special Operations language school at Ft. Liberty play cricket at my neighborhood elementary school on weekends. They very graciously let me watch and take photos.




One of my favorite quotes of all time -
“I will not stay silent so that you can stay comfortable.” - Mary Engelbreit
Who Doesn't Love Pizza
Who Doesn’t Love Pizza - The Origin of Pizza, The Varieties of Pizza, Top Pizza Joints in the US, The World’s Best Pizza - linkage.lol/who-doesn… #Blaugust2024

The Norman Rockwell Painting That Changed the Internet For Me
The Norman Rockwell Painting That Changed the Internet For Me - The story of a Norman Rockwell painting of a civil rights murder case that went viral after I posted it in 2017. - louplummer.lol/murder-in… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Harold wasn’t the friendliest guy I ever photographed, but he’d just gotten off work and was on the way to the subway, so I cut him slack. He did affirm that he “works on Wall Street,” something I suppose a lot of bankers aspire to,

Quick Note Taking – Type
Today on App Addict - Quick Note Taking – Type - Type is a menu bar app designed with one purpose in mind, to capture time-stamped notes in plain text or Markdown format quickly and to get out of your way. It’s fast and more versatile than using the fn+Q Apple Quick Note feature which doesn’t time stamp and is available… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/quic… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

One of my favorite mood lifters is making gratitude lists: home grown tomatoes, the first day it feels like fall, the cool side of the pillow, a good waitress, Bob Dylan, new socks, audiobooks, texts from my kids, days my knees don’t hurt, a good cuppa, a decade and a half of sobriety and you 😉
Totally Academic, Not Prurient, Look at the Internet and the Adult Industry
Totally Academic, Not Prurient, Look at the Internet and the Adult Industry - A look at the technological and economic impact of the adult web industry - linkage.lol/academic-… #Blaugust2024

The Guilt Industrial Complex
The Guilt Industrial Complex - An examination of guilt as a motivator and a hinderance in a healthy life - louplummer.lol/guilt-ind… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Dike, a Nigerian immigrant earning a tough living as a pedicab driver in NYC was nonplussed by the police efforts to get him to move from his location near the entrance to the Central Park Zoo.
Meteorologist - Free and Open-Source Menu Bar Weather
Today on App Addict - Meteorologist - Free and Open-Source Menu Bar Weather - Keeping track of current weather conditions and forecasts is a breeze (no pun intended) with the free and powerful menu bar app. Meteorologist, a free and open-source utility available on Sourceforge. I’ve user Meteorologist for years and have been impressed by a steady stream of updates.
To save on… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/mete… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

There are many successful people who live with mental illness and have good jobs and happy lives. More have recovered from depression, anxiety and other short-term illnesses. It concerns me that we are target vulnerable people as scapegoats for our lack of gun control. Fix the real problem.
I Am From
I Am From - A poem from my sister about her roots and mine, beautifully put - louplummer.lol/i-am-from… #Blaugust2024

Moonshine
Moonshine - Moonshine is still made and sold where I live and our history is rife with stories about famous moonshiners. - linkage.lol/moonshine… #Blaugust2024

Self Educated - Represent!
Self Educated - Represent! - After a middling experience in public education, I managed to use books and the Internet to forge a career in technology - louplummer.lol/self-educ… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Mr. Ed had his very simple shoeshine stand (a folding chair) set up outside of a subway stop on lower Broadway. Larry, the tired businessman shown, said that he stops by for a tune up every few days.
Twos App Users Really Love It
Today on App Addict - Twos App Users Really Love It - Every once in a while, an app is so well received that an entire community grows up around it. Evernote used to be like that before it started to suck. Obsidian is like that, just look at the YouTube videos and blogs. I’ve recently discovered that Twos, a combination calendar,… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/twos… #Universal Apps #Blaugust2024

Pong Took the World by Storm
Pong Took the World by Storm - The video game, Pong, revolutionized entertainment in the 70s and was once Sears biggest selling item of all time. - linkage.lol/pong-took… #Blaugust2024

The Sporting Life
The Sporting Life - Reflections on sports in my own life and in the society we live in - louplummer.lol/the-sport… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Shereesa didn’t want me to take her picture at first and used Chucky as a stand in. Later she let me get a few shots once I showed her some on my camera, but I have always liked this one.
Onyx for Mac
Today on App Addict - Onyx for Mac - Since 2003, Titanium Software has been issuing its free system maintenance and tweaking utility, Onyx for every major release of macOS. Currently there is a mature version of Sonoma and a beta version of Sequoia, although you can still download versions going all the way back to Jaguar, Mac OS… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/onyx… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

Creating a Home Streaming Server on the Cheap
Creating a Home Streaming Server on the Cheap - Links to the free software and cheap hardware to needed to convert your DVD library to streaming media - linkage.lol/creating-… #Blaugust2024

Workplace Lessons Learned
Workplace Lessons Learned - After 30 years of being an organizational IT guy, I have some opinions on stereotypes and customer service. - louplummer.lol/workplace… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Terry was the consummate, smooth-talking salesman trying to move antiques from his place at the flea market at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh. I asked about his hat, and he told that yes, it was for sale too.
Software for Mounting and Writing to NTFS Drives on a Mac
Today on App Addict - Software for Mounting and Writing to NTFS Drives on a Mac - I need to write to external NTFS formatted drives from my M3 iMac on a regular basis for my job. I investigated the free options, primarily Mounty and found them to have a little too much friction for me on a computer running Sonoma with the aforementioned Apple Silicon. I… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/soft… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

Flamed Fury - A Personal Website Well Done
Flamed Fury - A Personal Website Well Done - New Zealander, Flamed, has a well designed and maintained personal website that serves as an example for any new Indy Web folks looking for inspiration - linkage.lol/flamed-fu… #Blaugust2024
Moving
Moving - I managed to attend 13 schools in 12 years growing up. Here are some stories about what that was like. - louplummer.lol/moving/ #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers project - Larique was shooting strangers with bubbles like he didn’t even care. I asked him if anyone had gotten mad at him and he assured me they hadn’t. “I just smile at them” he told me.
Dynamic Lake Pro - An App for the Notch
Today on App Addict - Dynamic Lake Pro - An App for the Notch - In my ongoing search for an app to take advantage of the notch on my M2 MacBook Air, I bought Dynamic Lake Pro today after the developer offered a 20% discount on Reddit. The app provides a variety of information from system controls and applications.
General Controls You can elect… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/dyna… #Blaugust2024
Woodie Guthrie - American
Woodie Guthrie - American - Woodie Guthrie was an American folk singer and songwriter whose music championed and disenfranchised the working people of America. - linkage.lol/woodie-gu… #Blaugust2024

Website Fiddling
Website Fiddling - Thoughts on design from a non-designer who just wants to have an attractive site like his friends - louplummer.lol/website-f… #Blaugust2024

From My 100 Strangers project - Cherrelle was watching her nephews trying their hands at making free throws at a carnival booth set up in a Charlote courtyard. Like us, she was just in town just for the day.
NotchNook - Not Ready for Prime Time
Today on App Addict - NotchNook - Not Ready for Prime Time - After reading about NotchNook on Reddit and seeing the 35% off offer from the $25 purchase price, I purchased it to test it out. I reenabled the notch on my MacBook, which I had turned off with Better Monitor. The installation was straightforward, requiring access to the camera, microphone and… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/notc… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

I have to admit, AI has saved me a lot of time. Every time I start reading about some interesting new app or service or product and see that it has “AI”, I immediately stop reading and don’t waste any more time on that thing. - bit101
This Week's Bookmarks - New Dictionary Words, $5K Pants, Guide To Computing 45-90, Animal Misconceptions, Smart Crows, Hit Songs That Were Faked, 50 Best Romance books

‘The ick’ and ‘boop’ latest words added to the dictionary (bbc.com)
$5,000 Exoskeleton Pants Promise to Make You a Better Hiker (gizmodo.com)
Guide to Computing 1945-1990 - docubyte
One Misconception About 64 Different Animals (mentalfloss.com)
Seattle crows are so smart, they’re challenging what we know about evolution
10 Hit Songs That Weren’t What They Seemed (mentalfloss.com)
Remembering Geocities
Remembering Geocities - A look at the first web home many Gen X and Boomers ever had, Geocities - linkage.lol/remembero… #Blaugust2024

A Computer Is a Hammer
A Computer Is a Hammer - Computers are tools you should use to their fullest potential so quit worrying about overburdening your new MacBook. - louplummer.lol/a-compute… #Blaugust2024
From my 100 Strangers project - I asked LuAnn how long she had been working behind the counter at Sherry’s Bakery in Dunn, NC and she told me 17 years. When asked how many hotdogs she served in that period, she laughed and said “Lord, I don’t know. Feels like a million!”
Swift Shift - A Free Tool to Move and Resize Windows
Today on App Addict - Swift Shift - A Free Tool to Move and Resize Windows - Using keyboard shortcuts you define, Swift Shift allows you to easily move and resize windows without searching for the title bar or waiting for tiny arrows to appear. On my Mac, I set the hyperkey (CapsLock) to activate move mode. Now, when I press the key, whatever window is under… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/swif… #Mac Apps #Blaugust2024

Eastern North Carolina Barbecue
Eastern North Carolina Barbecue - Eastern North Carolina Barbecue refers to whole hog pork, cooked low and slow and seasoned with a vinegar-based sauce #Blaugust2024 - linkage.lol/eastern-n… #Blaugust2024

Confessions of a Non-Gamer
Confessions of a Non-Gamer - As a longtime technology fan, I remain baffled by the fact that I have never been able to enjoy video gaming, despite trying - louplummer.lol/confessio… #Blaugust2024

From my 100 Strangers Project - Dallas was working in Charleston, SC, South of Broad, in bitterly cold February weather. I asked him if he was used to it and he said “Hell, no. This is supposed to be South Carolina!” #Blaugust2024
Musebox - A Photographer's Bargain
Today on App Addict - Musebox - A Photographer’s Bargain - Musebox, a digital asset (photos, graphics, videos) management application by brushedpixel is a remarkable and affordable (one-time purchase of $10 for now) substitute for multi-featured programs like Adobe Lightroom, Apple Photos or Mylio. It has a variety of import, export, editing and management features.
You can import photos from digital… - apps.louplummer.lol/post/muse…

A True Crime Classic, Close to Home - The 1970 murders of his wife and daughters by Army Special Forces doctor Jeffery McDonald happened just a few miles from my home #Blaugust2024 - linkage.lol/a-true-cr… #Blaugust2024

Blaugust Introduction - An introductory post for new readers who stumble on to this blog because of #Blaugust2024 - louplummer.lol/blaugust-… #Blaugust2024
From my 100 Strangers project - Despite his fierce look in this photo, Al was engaging and funny. He was working a part time gig as a parking lot attendant in Charlotte for a Panthers game. I stuck around a while to listen to him tell stories about growing up during segregation in NC’s biggest city.
Today on App Addict - Karabiner Elements to the Rescue - After an unexplained failure of a previous workflow, I used the free keyboard mapping utility, Karabiner Elements, to reenable my hyperkey and turn of CapsLock when macOS baled at letting me do it.
apps.louplummer.lol/post/kara… #Mac #Blaugust2024

German POW Camps in the US
German POW Camps in the US , My Grandmother’s stories of German POWs at Ft. Bragg in WW2 , linkage.lol/german-po…

The Greatest Generation
The Greatest Generation , My grandparents both left farms in rural NC during WW2 to contribute to the defeat of fascism and I am grateful and proud. , louplummer.lol/the-great…

From my 100 Strangers project - This was one of the first photos I took when I started working on the project and I failed to get this gentleman’s name. He was busking on 6th Street in Austin if anyone remembers him, I would sure love to know who he is.
Today on AppAddict - Word Service from Devon Technologies - provides commands for working with text. Extend your word processor, email app, or web browser by reformatting text paragraphs, cleaning up tabs, quotes, or line endings. Remove unwanted text parts, sort lines or paragraphs, change case
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Dorothy Parker
A lack of curiosity is the most unattractive thing I can think of in a person. One of the things I love the most about the Internet is the all you can eat information smorgasbord. I just want to know more, more, more and it is never, ever enough.
Got my 100,000th visitor to my Micro.blog today. People really like to read about Obsidian, LOL. I’ve learned a lot since January and have had so much fun.

Action Comics Number One
Action Comics Number One , The history of the first appearance of Superman in a comic book. , linkage.lol/action-co…

From my 100 Strangers Project - Chanya was waiting to take part in a traditional Thai dance routine at the International Folk Festival held in my hometown each year. She claimed not to be nervous, but her pensive look said otherwise.
Today on AppAddict, Rocket - Free, Slack-Style Emoji Picker by indy developer Matthew Palmer is a free app to help you quickly insert emoji into your typed communications via Slack style shortcuts. By default, if you type a colon and the begin typing the name of an emoji, matching emojis will appear
Saturday I was bragging about how easy it was for my grandson to set up an old iPad we gave him. Yeah, about that…he’s forgotten his (not written down) pass code with 48 hours and now I have to DFU the thing and set it up all over again. LOL because he called his Nana for help before me.
Thriftmac - Free Mac Software
Thriftmac - Free Mac Software , Thriftmac, a Mac institution since 2006, is a website for discovering and downloading free Mac software. , linkage.lol/thriftmac…

Screen Time
Screen Time , I don’t stress over screen time because I believe it is the message, not the medium that matters. , louplummer.lol/screen-ti…

From my 100 Strangers project - Lee, the fisherman at the Oak Island pier. We have a period every fall in NC when the blues are running and the fishing piers on our barrier islands are full nearly 24 hours a day. Lee told me that he has been fishing at Oak Island since the 1950s.
Today on App Addict - TripMode - Data Usage Monitor and Control - useful when you have to tether your laptop to your phone, and you want to monitor data usage to make sure you’re not syncing cloud drives or downloading huge updates in the background.
The Tiny Awards- Website Diagram
The Tiny Awards- Website Diagram , Website Diagram is a linked roadmap of websites with information about the personal, non-commercial web , linkage.lol/the-tiny-…

I’m a day late but this week’s /Now page has been updated on what I’m (not) reading, good TV, links to my blog posts, tasty Chili Oil and lots of bookmarks.
Colbert's Questions
Colbert’s Questions , #100DaysToOffload Steven Colbert’s 15 questions to cover the full spectrum of human experience , louplummer.lol/colberts-…

From My 100 Strangers project - Kalindra was good natured enough to let me use this guy’s prop to snap a photo. Street fairs are a good place to approach people.
This Week's Bookmarks: 100 Best Album Covers, Swiss Army Knife, Robin Williams, Delayed Flights, Fictional Brands, Button Stealer, Highest Paid Olympians

The 100 Best Album Covers of All Time (rollingstone.com)
How the Romans invented the Swiss Army Knife – Museum Crush
James Lucas on X: “This Robin Williams thread will brighten up your day
Flight status canceled or delayed? Here’s what you can do. - Vox
Button Stealer | Anatoly Zenkov
Highest-Paid 2024 Paris Olympics Athletes: Rahm, LeBron, Curry Lead (sportico.com)
Carolina Bays
Carolina Bays , Carolina Bays are elliptical depressions in the earth’s surface found along the eastern seaboard of the US , linkage.lol/carolina-…
Computer People
Computer People , How people react to computer issues now as opposed to the early days of widespread PC usage , louplummer.lol/computer-…
Today on App-Addict - Witch from May Tricks is a window switcher that lets you ⌘+tab to an open tab in the Mac browser of your choice, not just Safari. It also features a menu bar switcher and optional vertical or horizontal layouts.
From my 100 Strangers project - Tony remarked that he was an African-American making me a Korean version of a Mexican dish in an American restaurant. Whatever. The bulgogi tacos were off the hook for real.
<img src=“https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2024/2014-12-18cooksbw-1-1.jpeg" width=“600” height=“450” alt=“Two men, wearing “Off the Hook” T-shirts, work in a taco restaurant’s kitchen. Stainless steel appliances and a menu board are visible in the background.">
My 77-year-old Dad is a diehard YouTube fan. He’s recovering from heart surgery today, so I made him a playlist to give him something to do while he’s laid up. YouTube for Grownups
You Can't Love Both
You Can’t Love Both , #100DayToOffload I’ve reached my lifetime limit of pretending that Republicans can love Trump AND Jesus at the same time , louplummer.lol/you-can-t…
Today on AppAddict - MenuWhere - its single purpose is to pop up the frontmost app’s menus at the current mouse location. By default, it is activated by ⌘ + Right Click, but you can use the built in preferences to activate it totally with the keyboard if you want to.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I met Joe downtown outside of a locally owned coffee shop. He was having some java and smoking a cigarette through a hole in this throat. He told me was a cancer survivor and that he just couldn’t give up cigarettes, although he no longer drank or used drugs.
Vivian Maier - Street Photographer
Vivian Maier - Street Photographer , Vivian Maier was an American street photographer whose work was not discovered until the time of her death. , linkage.lol/vivian-ma…
Living Out Loud Update
Living Out Loud Update , Just an update on what’s going on in various projects and personally lately. , louplummer.lol/living-ou…

Today on AppAddict - focusedOS lets you create a distraction free workspace by blocking apps, websites and interface elements and by playing ambient sounds to help you concentrate on what is important.
From my 100 Strangers project - Spike was getting a drink from a convenient water fountain when I spotted him near Zucotti Park in the Financial District not far from Wall Street. He didn’t have much to say but was willing to pose for a photo.
Today in history, 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos with Australian Peter Norman wearing an OPHR badge in solidarity.
Stuff in a Time Machine
Stuff in a Time Machine , A vintage post from 1997 where I look at my tendency to be a bit of a hoarder , louplummer.lol/stuff-in-…

Worst Computer Virus Ever
Worst Computer Virus Ever , The MyDoom computer virus cost the economy %52 Billion and once was responsible for one if four email messages sent every day. , linkage.lol/worst-com…
From my 100 Strangers project - I met Tammy at the mall late on a winter afternoon as she was about to head inside for her shift at one the restaurants in the food court. I saw her a few times after I took her photo and she always remembered me.
Today on AppAddict - a look at task managers and to do apps for Mac with my personal choice, Things 3 highlighted. A two-time Apple design award winner, Things 3 may be the pinnacle of app design in the Apple ecosystem.
A quick guide to translating Trumpsters:
“Soros” = Jews
“Chicago” = Blacks
“Detroit” = Blacks
“Fucking bitch” = Democratic congresswoman
“Job-killing regulations” = laws protecting air and water
“Religious freedom” = Christian dominance
“Heritage” = white supremacy
What it’s like being Trump’s campaign manager - It’s like being Charlie Manson’s foxtrot instructor. You go out there, you teach him a few moves, and you think, ‘Hey, look at that, he can learn the foxtrot.’ And the next thing you know, he’s putting a pen in your eye, because he’s Charlie Manson.
Get Toby
Get Toby , Toby is a browser extension for saving bookmarks and tab collections to your default new browser page , linkage.lol/get-tony/
I'm Not Sure What Class Actually Means
I’m Not Sure What Class Actually Means , I’m not sure what class I belong to, and I don’t care what class you are in #100DaysToOffload, , louplummer.lol/i-m-not-s…

From my 100 Strangers collection - Panchito was fascinated not just with my camera but with the whole process of taking photos and examining the back of the camera to see what I captured. He was not shy in the least.
Today on AppAddict - Qspace File Manager is a multi-paned file manager and a replacement for the Finder on macOS. After using Path Finder for 20 years, I recently switched to Qspace for its clean interface and extreme customization options.
The Blog Directory - that @jedda@social.lol and I started last week is booming with 123 blogs currently available for your review. If your blog is listed without a description, please visit the directory and fill out the form to include one along with your link. Boosts and shout outs appreciated!
An Obsidian Gem
An Obsidian Gem , Nicole van der Hoeven makes helpful and informative YouTube videos about Obsidian a PKM and note taking software title. , linkage.lol/an-obsidi…
Baseball Names as Poetry
Baseball Names as Poetry , A list of my favorite baseball players, selected solely on the poetic and literary quality of their names #100DaysToOffload , louplummer.lol/baseball-…
From my 100 Strangers project - Steve was profoundly over dressed for a hot afternoon street fair in Raleigh all the way down to his fingerless gloves. He played a bit as a grumpy crazy guy, but in reality, he was a charming crazy guy I enjoyed talking to.
Today on AppAddict - TRANSNOMINO is a free file naming utility with professional capabilities using wild cards, regular expressions or file attributes. It took the place of a Better Finder Rename for me.
The March on Washington for Job and Freedom, 1963
The March on Washington for Job and Freedom, 1963 , We got married on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to establish a connection with what’s good about American history , linkage.lol/the-march…
Keyboard Maestro Macro to Copy #Obsidian Daily Note to Day One
I use my Obsidian Daily Note to capture all kinds of data:
- Task of the day
- Weather
- Appointments
- What I learned
- What I did
- What I am grateful for
- Notes created today
- Notes modified today
- Tasks completed today
I use a Keyboard Maestro macro to copy the note over at the end of the day to Day One, since I’ve been keeping a Day One journal for 10 years and have 18K entries. The one drawback is the data from Dataview queries does not copy over.

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” - Jean Paul
From my 100 Strangers Project - I momentarily interrupted their workout, but Eddie and Vice didn’t seem to mind answering my questions through the open window of the lower Manhattan boxing gym where they were working out.
Free Blogging Advice
Free Blogging Advice , Seven Practical Steps and Services for Getting Started on the IndyWeb , louplummer.lol/free-blog…
Today on AppAddict - In Windows, when you hover over an app on the taskbar, the operating system shows you the open windows for that app, a useful feature missing in macOS until now with the introduction of the free menu bar app DockDoor.
My Top 10 Police Shows of All Time
My Top 10 Police Shows of All Time , A list of American and British police procedurals from the 80s to the present , louplummer.lol/my-top-10…
Let’s cut the bullshit and spell out a few things. The IT security industry is about as trustworthy as the food supplement and vitamin industry, but somehow they escaped the same reputation. Their products are overwhelmingly based on flawed ideas, and the quality of their software is exceptionally bad. And while not everyone will agree with the harshness of my words, I’ll say this: Essentially everyone in IT security who knows anything in principle knows this. - @hanno@mastodon.social
This Weeks Bookmarks - Gay Rodeo, Death Valley Heat, Interactive Historical Maps, Boundry Setting Language, Top 100 Athletes of the 21st Century, Nerd Poker, Drone Footage of Everest

Drone footage of Mt. Everest from base camp to the summit
Queer cowfolx are bucking tradition at the gay rodeo (19thnews.org)
What 129 Degrees Feels Like - The Atlantic (archive.ph)
Love history? Explore this interactive collection of old maps. | Popular Science
35 Boundary Phrases To Use in Relationships, Workplace - Parade
Ranking the top 100 professional athletes since 2000 - ESPN
How GTO made poker a game for nerds - Vox
It’s Saturday, so I updated my /now page with info on my new project with @jedda@social.lol , a blog directory, plus info on what TV I watched, all of the blog posts from this week, what new piece of kit I picked up and what new bookmarks I found.
The Power of Online Community - After six months on the Indy Web, on Mastodon, Micro.blog, Scribbles and BearBlog, I share what I have learned about online community without algorithm driven social media.
The Power of Online Community
The Power of Online Community , I share my experiences with online communities and discuss the many benefits they can offer. , louplummer.lol/the-power…
Today on AppAddict - I was reviewing the free and open-source app, Later, designed to save and reopen workspaces when I got a weird warning from Little Snitch and unexplained requests to access different areas of my Mac. Further examination revealed that the app wasn’t notarized. Not recommended!
From my 100 Strangers Project - Kiesha was waiting for the train to go to work with her brother, Marcus when he got bored and started to chase her around the platform. Later, out of breath, she informed me that he “plays too much. He plays out all the time.” She was smiling though.
<img src=“https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2024/marcus-and-kiesha.jpg" width=“462” height=“600” alt=“Two smiling individuals running on a tiled sidewalk of a covered public tram station with a sign reading “EMERGENCY” and other people in the background.">
Mindhunter was a Netflix show that although it only ran for two seasons, was a high quality portrayal of the early days of the FBI’s profiling unit wirh some chilling performances of serial killers like Charles Manson, Richard Speck and Ed Kemper.
Thinking about the possibility of becoming religious after being lucky enough to have a scheduled day off on CrowdStrike Friday. Somebody deserves the credit.
I See Color - When people talk about race, they use the line “I don’t see color” to prove they aren’t prejudiced. I make the argument that you better see color, or you will find yourself in the same old segregated spaces you’ve been in before. It takes intentionality to end society’s bad habits.
From my 100 Stanger’s Project - I didn’t get this guy’s name because when I started my usual rap with him, he started hitting me up for money. Even in NYC, I’d never had that happen before. We weren’t in Times Square or anything but a little further uptown than where I’d taken most of my portraits,
Today on AppAddict - Updater apps for Mac - I cover MacUpdater, Latest, CleanMyMac X, Topgrade, Raycast extensions and Applite.
I wish more products came with practical life advice. One of the best things The Rolling Stones ever wrote were the instructions on the LP for Let It Bleed.
I’m not a fan of Steve Jobs hagiography at all, but the other Steve, the humble one, the nice one, the generous one - him I like The Right Steve
Getting Caught With the Feels - My personal experiences with quiet crying, emotional vulnerability, and coping mechanisms, highlighting the power of the written word in self-expression and emotional regulation
From my 100 Strangers project - Diya, a seventh-grade student from Cary, NC was hamming for the camera when I caught this wide-eyed shot. Her Mom gave her grief for playing around but I have always liked the photo.
Today on AppAddict - Coherence and Unite are two apps based on Chromium and WebKit respectively, that improve built-in site-specific browser (SSB) functionality, offering extra tools like ad blocking, incognito mode and extension support.


When I Quit Social Media
I ditched social media for about 18 months during a time when I decided to dedicate my life to just doing healthy stuff: long daily walks, meditation, reading etc. I was able to do all of that but I missed the good parts, the sense of community, making new connections, keeping up with the online, but still real friends. So, I logged back on, but the prolonged break took all the urgency out of my relationship with social media. It broke the dopamine habit. Now I feel like I can take it or leave it, not addicted or doomscrolling in some guilty and shitty feeling way. I signed on to Mastodon in January and it’s been the best experience ever. It’s full of techy creatives and absent the mindless “look at me” drama from other platforms. I would miss it if I quit, so I don’t plan on doing so.
Taking a look at Internet Trolls, their origin, history and most infamous campaign, Gamergate, the one that gave rise to the alt-right, r/theDonald and the Trumpification of disaffected young white men
Looking at the quandy caused by feeling optimistic about my own circumstances while so many others are in a panic. Writing this brought me to tears
From my 100 strangers project - Deb and Jules were busking in a tunnel in Central Park. Despite the Led Zeppelin t-shirt, they were doing a Beatles tune, Here Comes the Sun. I threw dough in the guitar case for the song, the photo and conversation were on the house.
Today on App Addict - Explore Little Tagger, a budget-friendly alternative to Hazel for automating basic tagging tasks on your Mac. Learn about its features, pros, and cons, and consider joining the beta for the developer’s upcoming, more advanced tagging app.
When people have acted hysterically and you point that out, they get hysterical again. Case in point the recent Internet meltdown over the Bartender app where none of the predictions of evil have come true. Still can’t get folks to get off that ledge. Been fighting rando for two days over this.
After water, tea is the most popular beverage in the world and I do my best to to consume my share of it in a way much different than my fellow southerners.
We use the phrase “Absolute Legend” so often it loses meaning. Well, here is a real legend, Grandma Gatewood, the first woman to solo hike the entire Appalachian Trail, at age 68 in 1955. Link
From my 100 Strangers project - Mose the artist, from Raleigh, NC. Although I prefer to do portraits in B&W, the colors in his artwork and clothing need to be seen to be appreciated. One day, I’ll hang a print of this one in my living room
Today on AppAddict - Cryptomator, a free and open-source encryption tool designed to be used with cloud utilities like Google Drive, Dropbox and One Drive, it provides end to end 256-bit AES encryption. There are also versions for Windows and Linux and a paid version ($12.99) for iOS.
if I Could Only Install 20 Mac Applications

I’m rather proud of having more than 400 apps installed on my Mac. According to Lingon X, I have 102 apps either as login items or running in the background as helper apps. I have a hobby blog, AppAddict where I write an app review every day, always something I have downloaded, installed and used on my personal Mac. I love my Setapp subscription because it gives me an evergrowing library of high quality apps to try out for the same monthly price. But if all this goodness evaporated suddenly and i was forced to run vanilla Mac OS plus twenty apps to get my work done, which out of all the ones that own would I choose? Answering this requires some tough choices. may of these apps I have been using for more than a decade, although a few have been adopted in the past year.
- Obsidian - an extensible note taking app
- Clean Shot X - the best screen shot utility
- Raycast - an app launcher that handles much more
- Keyboard Maestro - the ultimate Mac automation tool
- Microsoft Edge - my choice for web browsing for reasons
- PopClip - a text selection utility
- TextExpander - a snippets app
- Drafts - a text automation app
- Day One - the preeminent journaling app for macOS
- Default Folder X - an enhancement for open and save dialog boxes
- Hazel - a Mac automation tool for file management
- DropZone 4- a file shelf utility
- Toyviewer - a Preview replacement for images with editing capabilities
- PathFinder - a replacement for Finder (although I might opt for Qspace)
- ScrapPaper - a menu bar utility for floating notes
- BarTender - I didn’t buy into the hysteria, I just set up some Little Snitch rules
- Better Touch Tool - multi-purpose automation app
- Find Any File - a search utility
- Things 3- a task manager
- Outlook - for better or worse, it’s the email app I use to get work done (note to self: do better)
A riff on what it’s like being sick as an adult vs. being sick as a kid with a hat to tip some of my favorite care givers.
A while back I published My Rules for Me, my self-written guidelines for living. This guy has 100 rules and they are all worth reading.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Irish Mike was walking the streets of Wilmington, NC appropriately clad in green to go with his red hair. He claimed to be a ‘feckin’ leprechaun" when we spoke. Also, he made have had a drink or two.
Today on AppAddict - A look at text expansion choices for power users - ranging from the native macOS tool to Keyboard Maestro, Raycast/Alfred, Better Touch Tool and single purpose apps like my choice, Text Expander and Expanso.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that 76% of 642 websites tested used so called “dark patterns”, deceptive practices that put your wallet and your privacy at risk.
Trump’s weaponized incompetence cost countless lives during the pandemic, his commitment to stripping health care from millions is murderous. His courting of war criminals is grotesque. How dare anyone accuse others of not being a good lefty for not handwringing over his near-death experience.
POSSE, Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, is a foundational tenet of the Indy Web. Do you do it? How? On cross posting
From my 100 Strangers project - Big Jim works for the rescue squad and they had been called out for some mysterious goings on at an old car wash in a rural area a few miles from Ft. Liberty. He would not tell me what was going on, but he let me take his picture, so it wasn’t a total wash.
Today on AppAddict - Step 2 Offers Two Factor Authentication in a Desktop App With parts of Authy deprecated and others hit by security breaches, you might be looking for a new solution.
This landscape is our home, and we rarely stray long from it, or endure anywhere else for long before returning. This may seem like a lack of imagination or adventure, but I don’t care. I love this place; for me it is the beginning and the end of everything, and everywhere else feels like nowhere - James Rebanks, A Shepherd’s Life
I love that quote about the Scottish Highlands from Rebanks book. It reminds me of my feelings for my own home on the coastal plain of NC in the remnants of the great Eastern pine forest.
Cursing at computers 100% makes them run better and anyone who doesn’t know this need to up their troubleshooting game. I can make a recalcitrant hard drive mount with two motherfuckers and one asshole.
This Week's Bookmarks - Tools people use, Every streaming service price hike, 50 best movie soundtracks, 100 best books of the 21st century, 30 amazing images of the universe, World architecture forum award winners, how celebrity book clubs work
Every Streaming Service Price Hike in 2023 and 2024 | Lifehacker
The 50 Best Movie Soundtracks of All Time (getpocket.com)
100 Best Books of the 21st Century - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
World Architecture Forum Awards 2024: World’s best new architecture revealed | CNN
How Celebrity Book Clubs Actually Work
It’s Saturday and time to update my /now page with what I’ve been reading (and what I quit reading), watching, writing, buying and browsing. Lots of stuff!
Mixtape Garden is a free service that crafts downloadable mixtapes crafted from the YouTube videos you specify
Time is What You Make of It - someone asked me when I had time for myself because I write a lot, but my writing time is my “me time”. It’s a privilege, not a chore.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Susie was hanging out by the Cape Fear River down on the Wilmington waterfront when I caught her trying out her hula hoop.
Today on AppAddict - an old mac troubleshooting tool is back and I am feeling nostalgic. [Network Utility is available for download from Devonthink](apps.louplummer.lol/post/netw… totally free. It was part of the OS from the very first days of OS X up until Big Sur.
Stranger In a Strange Land, Revisited - I’ve been reexamining Robert A. Heinlein lately. After nearly worshipping him as a young person, I later wrote him off as a militarist and a misogynist, but discussions with other progressives have me investigating him as man of his time.
Time Capsule Atlanta, 1997 A blog post from way back in the day after I spent my first overnight in a big city a year after it hosted the Olympics. My shock at prices and some of my language choices reflect the difference between then and now.
From my 100 Strangers project - This is a candid shot I took of Scott rather than a portrait, but I liked it the best of the shots I took of him while he was getting his Wilmington, NC sandwich shop ready to open.
Today on App Addict - Disk Drill by Cleverfiles is data recovery software that comes with six free utilities including disk health monitor, Mac cleanup, duplicate finder, recovery drive, data protection and data backup.
Today marks 100 consecutive days that I have posted a review on AppAddict, a little website that I started on a whim to be able to talk to other people who have a download addiction. It’s done pretty good, been quoted in Lifehacker and the Verge and some developers have been quite nice. I❤️IndyWeb!
“The function of freedom is to free someone else.” - Toni Morrison
“Nobody is free until everybody is free.” - Fannie Lou Hamer
These two powerful quotes from two giants of our time, one literary and the other from the Civil Rights Movement capture something that I believe at the very core of who I am. It’s the essence of responsibility.
I think you can figure out a lot about a person if you know what books have had the most impact on them. At one point or another, each of these books was my current favorite. They all had a lasting impact on me. I’d love to see your list. - @amerpie
So far, five folks besides me have contributed their list of the 15 books that have had the most impact on them. I’d love to see more people join in. It’s a good way to see what led to people being who they are today. @tracydurnell @alexandra@social.lol @werd.io @goofpunk@mastodon.social @realityframeworks@mastodon.social
Taking a Mental Health Day - After too many meetings and too few decisions at work, there was only one cure for the stress,
From My 100 Strangers project - I caught Vanessa and her large personality downtown on a Sunday afternoon watching her break-dancing friends perform.
Today on AppAddict - [GoodLinks])(https://apps.louplummer.lol/post/goodlinks) is a dual-purpose app with a lot going for it. It’s both a bookmark manager and a read-it-later app. It’s a one-time $9.99 purchase in the App Store.
Facebook Purity a Browser Extension That Removes Some of the Evil - If you are on Facebook out of choice or through family obligations like me, this browser extension makes it somewhat bearable by disrupting the algorithm and hiding the gross parts.
True Confessions - My Life on the High Seas Back in the beginning days of the web, when Napster had 80 million users and torrents were a new thing, I might have downloaded some stuff.
From my 100 Strangers project - William self-described himself as a reformed old drunk and said he has now dedicated his life to helping people.
Today on AppAddict - Mac Uninstallers - App Cleaner vs. Pear Cleaner one is more bare bones but thorough. The other has more features but occasionally misses a few files.
have to admit that it’s breaking my heart to watch a new generation of anxious parents think that they can address the struggles their kids are facing by eliminating technology from kids' lives. I’ve been banging my head against this wall for almost 20 years, not because I love technology but because I care so deeply about vulnerable youth. And about their mental health. And boy oh boy do I loathe moral panics. I realize they’re politically productive, but they cause so much harm and distraction.
I wrote 50 more blogging prompts to round out my collection to an even 100. If you get stumped on a topic for a post, take a look at these.
From my 100 Strangers - This is Disha, photographed with her mother’s blessing, at the NC India Festival held in the fall of the year at Dorton Arena in Raleigh. She was nervously waiting to participate in a dancing exhibition.
Today on AppAddict - An Unemotional Look at Clean My Mac X - I look at the controversial app without hyperbole or bias and point out its strong and weak points.
If anyone wants to play along, make a list of the 15 books that have had the most impact on you and share it. 15 Books with the Most Impact
From my 100 Strangers Project - I met Bryan at the farmer’s market in the small coastal town of Beaufort, NC where people sell their goods under a huge canopy of live oak trees a couple of blocks from the waterfront. He was pretty taciturn and did not have a lot to say.
Today on AppAddict - Downie - Video Downloader - Downie can download from more than 1000 sites with more being added on a bi-weekly basis. It can download 4K video and audio-only streams.
Female hair is either long or political. Sexual orientation is either heterosexual or political. Gender identity is either cis or political. Clothing is either gender stereotyped and boring or political. City infrastructure is either car-focused or political. Energy is either fossil fuels or political. Education is either white Christian propaganda or political. Everything follows the same pattern, tech included.
I put my thinking cap on this afternoon and came up with 50 Ideas for Blog Posts. Hopefully, some of y’all will get some use from them.
Awesome Mac - Browse a Huge Selection of Mac Applications - I have 449 applications on my MacBook. After browsing this site, I’m about to have a few more.
My Favorite Newsletter Subscriptions - A list of free and worthy reads on subjects ranging from tech to history to current events from writers like Heather Cox Richardson, Joan Westenberg, Ed Zeron.
“There are moments when you cannot help but feel that your life is being controlled by some not-entirely-benevolent god. You skirt down a ridge only to climb it again; you climb a steep peak when there is an obvious route around it; you cross the same stream three times in the course of an hour, for no apparent reason, soaking your feet in the process. You do these things because someone, somewhere, decided that that’s where the trail must go.”
The Essence of Hiking
Today on AppAddict - Clop - Copy Big, Paste Small, Send Fast - a utility that automatically resizes files simply by copying and pasting. Works on images, video and PDFs. Clop can also downscale images from 90% t0 10% of the original size.
From my 100 Strangers Project - A rare color picture, to capture the multi-colored chalk on Danielle’s face after she and a friend had been to a Holi festival in lower Manhattan. I caught them heading for the subway.
Updated my /subscriptions page with a couple of new entries - Paramount+ so I can watch Mayor of Kingstown ($60 for a year) and BearBlog ($5 a month) so I can be on every blogging platform I hear about.
This Week's Bookmarks - Democracy and the church, Vietnamese chicken salad, 25 hikes, Life's Anti-Checklist, 50 ways to fuel a conversation, Life of a tennis player, Daily routines
Can Democracy And Evangelical Christianity Co-Exist? | (Backyard Church)
Goi Ga, a Crunchy Vietnamese Chicken Salad Recipe (foodandwine.com)
25 Easy, Scenic, and Short National-Park Hikes (outsideonline.com)
The Life Anti-Checklist Common Goal - a list of things you definitely don’t want to do in your life but may have done anyway, like sleeping through your bus stop, burning your dinner or forgetting your anniversary
50 Ways To Fuel A Conversation (swiss-miss.com)
For example
- Be the first to say hello.
2 Introduce yourself to others. - Take risks and anticipate success.
- Remember your sense of humor.
- Practice different ways of starting a conversation
‘I’m good, I promise’: the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player | Tennis | The Guardian
Daily Routines (typepad.com) - How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days
Freckles, The Bull, The Bean, and Cajun - The story of the most memorable animals from my life, a Dalmation, a Black Angus Bull, a Dachshund and an Amazon Parrot
It’s Saturday, the day I regularly update my /now page. This week I’m touting a great newsletter, Werd.io, four streaming shows, listing a week’s worth of blog posts and turning you on to a great cheap fine tipped ink pen. As always, there’s also the links I saved into my collection this week.
Today on App Addict - Day One is popular for a reason. I have five journals with 18K entries made over the past 10 years, many of them automated records from social media, weather reports, clipped news articles, RSS feeds of my blogs as well as pictures and video.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Jaleesa and Moniek were hanging out with their friends in front of the Art Center downtown for an impromptu, old school break-dancing sesh.
How to Create Maps of Content (MOC) in #Obsidian

Maps of Content, or MOCs in Obsidian lingo are just notes that built around a collection of links to other notes with some sort of commonality. You can make them manually be just creating links by hand when you want to add a note to a collection. You can also create them automatically using a few plugins.
Folder Based
If you keep your notes in folders, you can use two plugins, Folder Note and Waypoint to create a MOC of all the notes in that folder and its subfolders.
- Just download and turn on both plugins
- Create a note within the folder with the exact name of the folder
- Add the following text to the that note %%Waypoint%%
- For any subfolders, add a note within the subfolder with the same name as the subfolder.
- Add the following text to that note %%Landmark%%
This will create real markdown links to the notes in the main and subfolders. Unlike MOCs generated with DataView, You can print and copy the text from Waypoint notes into other applications.
Because folders are binary, a file is either in a folder or it is not. If you want to add a note to a Waypoint based MOC, nothing is stopping you from manually creating the note. You can even combine a Waypoint note with the second type of note, the DataView MOC.
Tag Based
If you note organizational structure is tag based, you can create MOCs based on a simple DataView query. First, install and enable Dataview. It doesn’t matter where in your vault that you place Dataview based MOCs. I have a folder call zz-Meta where all mine live. Use the following query to create a MOC based on a tag:
LIST
FROM #tag_name
SORT file.ctime DESC
Of course, nothing prevents you from manually adding notes to this MOC either.
More Obsidian Info
Once upon a time, human beings bought their music at glorious record stores with knowledgeable, if slightly arrogant clerks, who could tell you about new releases and do the whole “If you like the Grateful Dead, you will probably like Phish” trip. Now we have Album Whale
I’ve been punching a clock for 44 years and I’ve had all kinds of bosses and coworkers during that time. I learned a while back to take my own inventory to see if I was causing problems, because sometimes it’s me. Sometimes, it’s not, however and this is how I dealt with that recently.
From my 100 Strangers project - Claire was straddling her bike on the east side of Zucotti Park in NYC. I commented on her jersey proclaiming, “Runs on Plants” and she told me that she is a vegan athlete who manages to participate in endurance sports while sticking to her consumption values.
Today on AppAddict - OnlySwitch is a free Mac menu bar app that offers instant access to numerous system settings like Dark Mode, Bluetooth, Mute Mic as well as mini-applications like keep awake, Internet Radio and hiding the notch on MacBooks.
The most tired I have ever been was not after 100-mile bike rides or backpacking over mountains. It was after a full day of farm work, especially during corn pulling season when I was a teenager.
From My 100 Strangers Project - Alex - a super friendly guy from somewhere other than NC (Russia, actually) wearing a Duke shirt and reading a book about Vikings. I met him while he was sitting in a small Manhattan park with his book.
Today on AppAddict - Plus AI from MacPlus Software an AI app that lives in the background, works on selected text and can be used in any app, is a convenient and easy to use way to incorporate the parts of AI that don’t rip people off into your workflow.
Consider the quintessential traits often attributed to every younger generation - regardless of the era. Idealism. Technological savvy. A desire to challenge the status quo. An anti-authority bent. Flip through the pages of history, and you’ll find these same attributes ascribed to youth movements across the decades, even centuries.
Thoughts on Joan Westenberg’s piece Generational Labels Are BS
I wrote a whole lot more than normal yesterday so when it came time to update my non-technical blog I was about out of energy and feeling kind of low. My remedy for that was to make a quick list of things that make me happy. It includes:
- Robert Duvall
- People who tip wait staff well
- Democracy
From my 100 Strangers project - I caught up with Roland near the Wall Street Bull down in the financial district at the southern tip of Manhattan. He was a British fellow, slightly amused by this forward American who wanted to take a street portrait. He wasn’t up for much gabbing.
Today on AppAddict - Stats is a free menu bar app that monitors various hardware components on your Mac, providing colorful, easy to read, configurable charts and graphs plus a way to terminate misbehaving apps.
A Free Tool That Lets You Follow Any RSS Feed via The Fediverse - Birb via RSS Parrot. Do you have any favorite bloggers who just aren’t interested in social media? I do, and I use this tool to follow them on Mastodon. I’m always too far behind on my RSS reader, but I can keep up with toots.
IndyWeb Carnival - Tools, How #Obsidian Cured My Depression, Saved my Job and Gave Me Purpose

I often make the comment on Reddit or Mastodon that Obsidian, a cross platform note taking application, is my favorite piece of software since Netscape Navigator 2, the browser that practically everyone used when we transitioned from AOL and CompuServe to the real Internet back in the 90s. Back then we discovered new and interesting web pages daily. The Internet was full of hastily constructed and esoteric material, and it all seemed so magical. For our whole lives we’d had to wait until 10 past the hour for the radio to give us a weather forecast and now we could use this marvelous piece of software to go to weather.com whenever we were curious. It was revolutionary and amazing, and it took a while to get used to.
Eventually we did get used to it, along with all of the other marvels over the past nearly 30 years. I find myself quite jaded sometimes. The computer I carry in my pocket can do almost anything and I’m still referring to it as a phone, the same name i used for the hard-wired wall mounted rotary dialed device at my grandmother’s house. I no longer marvel at being able to do my Christmas shopping from my couch or following a baseball game pitch by pitch, knowing the speed of every thrown ball and the batting average of every hitter right up to that at bat.
I experienced an Internet revival late last year. After an aborted attempt to retire early, I’d lost interest in keeping up with technology. I quit following the news, stopped downloading software and spent hours scrolling trash subreddits like “Am I the Asshole”. Out of desperation, I went back to work to have something to do. Even though I went back into the IT field, I was still ambivalent. Instead of being on a Mac like I was used to, I was assigned a slow old Dell full of Microsoft software. It did not spark joy. Then one day I picked up my old iPad and for some reason launched my RSS reader. Many of blog feeds were years old and dead but some were still active. I started reading them first from boredom and then with interest. People were talking about apps I’d never heard of. I cracked open my MacBook and started downloading updates for the OS and the hundreds of apps I’d collected over the years. It took a while.
A British blogger, Robb Knight had created a page where people were listing their default apps in all kinds of categories. I wanted to get on the fun. I’d been working in the Apple/Mac/iOS space since the late 90s and except for the short break after retirement, I’d always been fascinated by software. In order to get added to Robb’s site, I had to start a blog. I signed up at Micro.blog, registered a domain and started writing. One app I saw mentioned over and over that I’d never used was Obsidian. It’s free to download and you can use it all you want without paying a dime unless you want to take advantage of their sync service, something I did a little later.
I documented my learning process in Obsidian as it progressed. I’d download a plugin, watch a YouTube video, configure my setup, use it for a few days and then write a post for my blog. I’d cross post it on Reddit and use a hashtag on Mastodon. I went for months living and breathing Obsidian. I started doing all my writing in it. I pimped out the template for my daily note, incorporating more and more of my life into it. I integrated key email messages via IFTTT, Dropbox and Hazel. I synced my bookmarks from Raindrop.io. I started using Omnivore as my read it later service simply because it automatically imports into Obsidian. I started my first GitHub repository to share 500 Markdown notes containing my quotes collection. I managed to get Obsidian to do every single thing I’d once used Evernote for.
Because of Obsidian I’ve been able to learn blogging in the 21st century. I have four different blogs on three different platforms. I’ve got good notes and records and tens of thousands of words of web posts in my vault. Although I still write about the app once or twice a week, I’ve moved on to writing reviews of other software and even into non-technical writing. It’s amazing that something as simple as a plain text editor at its core has been at the center of my tech and real-life revival. It is so powerful and so extensible that it almost defies belief. The community around the app is generally helpful, supportive curious and open. I’ve even interacted with the CEO of the company on social media.
So, to the folks in whatever Bat Cave Obsidian is developed in, thank you for making such a wonderful tool. I owe you one.
I made folks laugh yesterday when I commented that I’m an almost 60-year-old man with grandchildren who now can’t cuss on my blog anymore because my mother found it and reads it every day. I thought I might explain the reasons why - When You Cuss in Front of Your Mama, You Can’t Take it back
From my 100 Strangers project - I met Jamie along with her friend Miranda at a street fair where the two of them were promoting their roller derby team, a sport I thought was long dead.
Today on AppAddict - Trickster keeps track of recent files you’ve been using on your Mac and gives you super easy and lightning fast access to them.. For writers, developers, photographers and anyone else who works with files. Has a learning curve but worth the time investment.
The New York Times Style Magazine assembled a group of editors to determine which 25 photos from 1955 until today are the defining images of the modern age. Some are of news events, and you’ve surely seen them. Other images in the collection were new to me, but still very powerful.
Straight Old White Guy’s Guide to Talking About Race, Abortion, Feminism and LGBT issues - Straight Old White Guys (SOWG) need to be quiet, listen and learn, not pontificate on how great they are because they stopped being backwards.
Today on AppAddict - Amphetamine offers granular control to keep your Mac from sleeping while a certain app is running, for a period of time, until a certain time of day and more. It will keep your MacBook awake while the lid is closed or while a backup drive is attached.
From my 100 Strangers project - While taking Austin’s photo, I caught an unplanned selfie as the reflection in his sunglasses captures me leaning into him to get the shot.
I Have Some Strong Opinions on Privacy Freak Outs Yes, your privacy is under assault, but unless you are willing to take certain uncomfortable steps, quit making everyone miserable with performative hysterics.
The 23 Best Time Travel Novels - a collection dating from the 1950’s through today. Despite paradoxes, time travel is a fascinating concept and makes a great read.
From my 100 Strangers project - Specialist Erroll was downtown for a performance of the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division Band where he played a mean trumpet. He was a gracious and friendly guy and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him between performances. #photography
Today on AppAddict - Text Sniper is an OCR app for your Mac that can read text from YouTube videos, PDFs, images, online courses, screencasts, presentations, webpages, video tutorials, photos. It has more features than the macOS built in Live Text and is a bargain at $7.99.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging {micro maique}, the wonderful photo blog of Maique, resident visual artist, role model and superstar of Micro.blog, Scribbles, Flickr and Instagram. I linked to some cool outdoor photos entitled, The River.
For the 26th week in a row I’ve updated my /now page with a new to me blog discovery feed, four TV shows, the 16th blog posts I wrote, a new app to love and the links I added to my personal collection.
This Week's Bookmarks - Movie Monster Sizes, Maximizing life, Best American towns to visit, Spending across generations, America's best pizza joints, Best Lake Towns, 50 True Things About Israel/Palestine

The Relative Size of Movie Monsters | First person view (youtube.com)
44 One-Line Reminders to Maximize Life after 44 Years - Mike Thompson (mikethompsonblog.com)
CNN reveals America’s Best Towns to Visit in 2024 | CNN
See how your spending habits differ from previous generations - Washington Post
The Best Pizza in America Right Now - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Best Lake Towns in the US: Lakes to Visit for Your Next Summer Vacation - Thrillist
A good article by @jhpot@mastodon.social on the case for De-Googling and links to help you out. Lots of resources
Today on AppAddict - I make the case for Microsoft Edge for a certain class of Mac users who also use Microsoft Office, Outlook and One Drive. I use it on both my Macs and my iPhone and love its speed, rock solid syncing and features like profiles, workspaces and collections plus extension support.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging, And So it Goes, the blog of Kerri Ann Krueger, one of my favorite Mastodon follows and Indy bloggers. The post I’m linking to is about failure and how to have a healthier relationship with it. @philomath@social.lol
From my 100 Strangers project - Michelle is a member of a belly-dancing club that performs at street festivals. I ran into her before their performance, and she gave me the big smile you see here. The positive vibe I got from meeting her made the rest of night with my camera go well.
A web site for baby bloggers or even experienced ones needing some fresh ideas, 32-Bit Cafe has plenty to explore. It has guides and tutorials, page ideas, website topics, art and graphic design, technical info and a massive resource list.
Every once in a while, I just have to blog about the day that has been, with the good and the stuff that I wouldn’t describe that way. A Day in the Life. Today my boss acted like we were building an atomic bomb instead of the very low security environment in which we operate.
From my 100 Strangers project - Mark was at the Beaufort, NC Pirate Festival. In fact, I took this picture only a few hundred yards from where Blackbeard’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge went down in the harbor.
Today fo #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Molly White, one of the few “famous people” I follow on social media, mainly because she is smart, relatable and knows her stuff on things I’m curious about. This is a great piece on what can be done to improve OUR internet.
Today on AppAddict - Pie Menu is a mouse + keyboard driven alternative to memorizing menu bar commands. It is a fully configurable tool for activating menu bar commands from a pop-up menu that follows your cursor. Looks interesting but there is a FOSS option available.
I think I am in heaven. I just found an online gallery of portraits by renowned street photographer, Ryan Weideman. I’ve done street portraits for over a decade, including my 100 Strangers Project, but I have a long way to go to catch this guy. The portrait subject is poet, Alan Ginsberg.
Cool Tools is a web site which recommends the best/cheapest tools available. Tools are defined broadly as anything that can be useful. This includes hand tools, machines, books, software, gadgets, websites, maps, and even ideas.
Some really hot takes in this article on web design!
Those who continue to host one on their own domain like this site tend to treat it as a “hire me!” billboard or fill it with boring think pieces. If this site weren’t proof enough, have a gander at what comes up when you browse the … Bearblog.dev index.
It is because the only people making websites anymore are those that look to monetize it in some way. Personal websites are becoming a historical artifact rather than being part and parcel of the web itself.
President Joe Biden will issue a proclamation giving mass clemency to US service members convicted of charges under a Cold War-era purge of gay and lesbian people, reversing a decades-long policy of discrimination that forced an estimated 100,000 people from the military.
I had a lot of fun writing a lookback at my most memorable TV moments from 1969 through today. I linked to many old shows, news events and sports. Hopefully you can identify with some of it! Me and the Box
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Parker Molloy, a well know blogger who writes about communication in our hyperconnected world. Her recent piece on Snopes shows how they missed the ball when they declared Trump didn’t refer to Nazis as very fine people.
From my 100 Strangers project - This great big smile belongs to Lawrie who was visiting the historical coastal town of Beaufort, NC with her friends.
Today on AppAddict - I list my favorite apps from SetApp with details about their purpose and what they would cost if stand alone. I also posted a list of all 40 (!!!) of the apps I’m using for the same low mothly price. It’s a real bargain for any Mac user.
Hitler Was Incompetent and Lazy and His Government Was an Absolute Clown Show - Lot’s of similarities to his orangeness and company, like it or not. It’s a valid comparison.
What do we look for in the people we meet online? - I’ve got to say that the people I meet online are a varied group, a lot more so than the folks around me IRL. It’s one of the things that makes blogging, social media and the IndyWeb ethos so attractive.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Manuel Moreale, famous in the IndyWeb community (and deservedly so) for his People and Blogs newsletter. Manuel is another blogger I choose to support each month for all he does to lift up others. His post is on how we communicate online.
Today on AppAddict - Sequel, a unique player in the media database space, tracks TV shows, movies, books, audiobooks and video games. Well designed, configurable and powerful, it is a real joy to use.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Jerry asked me if I knew that you could catch fish at the State Fair. I wasn’t interested in buying a second-hand bass, but he tried his best to talk me into it.
There are too many cool people online to waste time with buttheads. I’ve gone on a little blocking spree today on a certain orange hued social network and honestly, it felt great. No patiently explaining to someone why they should be nice. Just click a button and they are gone forever.
Another 10 Random #Obsidian Tips
This is the third in a series of things I figured out on my own in Obsidian, but that I wish I’d seen elsewhere to save me some time!
10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips
1. Quick Access to Frequently Used Notes
Although a plugin exists to let you add notes to your ribbon bar, you can set up your own quick access panel in the left sidebar of adding the bookmarks module. As a bonus, you can use an alias name for notes and drag them around to reorder them.
2. Create Buttons for Frequently Used Commands

The Commander plugin lets you create buttons in your ribbon bar for your most frequently used menu commands. I use it for Linter, Shortcut Launcher, Attachment Management and RSS Copyist.
3. Update Your Plugins Wisely
The Plugins Update Tracker notifies you when there are updates to your plugins. It creates a page with all of the release notes. You can set a delay of X days before you are notified if you prefer to wait awhile to make sure there are no bugs in the new releases. You can choose to be notified of beta versions if you want. You can update your plugins right from the Tracker’s interface without opening Obsidian’s prefs.
4. Create a Homepage with Search, Recent Notes and Bookmarks
The Beautitab plugin lets you choose an image for the background, displays a clock, a quote, links to recently opened notes, links to recently bookmarked notes and your choice of a search interface (native or Omnisearch). You can turn off any element you don’t want to use.
5. Manually Order Notes

File Explorer++ lets you hide and pin files and folders. You can utilize custom wildcard or regex filters based on file/folder names, paths, and tags. Additionally, a simple click in the file menu lets you hide or pin specific files or folders.
6. Speed Up Obsidian on an Older Phone
I contacted Obsidian support when I was having issues withslow updates on my iPhone 11. To get better performance they suggested turning off backlinks and graph view on mobile and to not enable Dataview and Metabind. (Note: you have to have Obsidian sync to do this)
7. Automatically Sync a Copy of Your Vault Daily
For Mac Users - SyncFoldersPro lets you schedule folder sync operations. I run one daily to sync my Obsidian vault to Google Drive. As a bonus, it saves copies of moved, deleted and renamed files in a separate folder, allowing you to pull old versions of notes if anything ever goes wonky. It’s saved my bacon more than once.
8. Add a Creation Date and Modification Date to Every Note’s Properties
The Linter plugin Has a setting to add a creation and modification date to every note which can prove very useful in building certain Dataview queries.
9. Get Obsidian Sync
Quit trying to jank together some alternative solution and spend the $4 a month on Obsidian sync. It allows you to selectively sync folders, eliminating the need for separate vaults, have custom preferences for your plugins on different devices, batch restore files and more. If you are a student, educator or non-profit employee, you get 40% off.
10. Prevent Multiple Copies of the Same Note From Opening
Mononote is a simple plugin that prevents this aggravating behavior. Instead of having multiple tabs with the same note open, it just refocuses the existing tab, saving you time and memory.
Watching a Better Youtube - info and links to free YouTube resources: transcripts, summarizer, an online RSS service and an ad free, privacy first viewer and downloader.
Are you still listening to the same songs you liked in high school (like me) or are you one of those brave souls who is always looking for something new? Music to My Ears
Today on AppAddict - Unclutter - Three Utilities in One App - a clipboard manager, a file shelf and a floating notes interface. Free trial, one time purchase.
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Matt Langford, one of the superstars of Micro.blog, the designer of TinyTheme and one of a hand full of bloggers I contribute to financially each month. This post is his /carry slash page, with some good tips on gear. @matt@mattlangford.com on the Fediverse.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Arty had a concession at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh. He told me he was in the Central Highlands of Vietnam with the 4th Infantry division in 1970-71.
If anyone would like to contribute a post about their favorite food memories (grandma’s, mom’s, that $500 meal you had in Paris, basic training mess hall or whatever) I’m collecting links to them and will put up a page as soon as I get a few. Here’s mine
I want to encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to add your blog to Feedle, a search engine for blogs. It’s great resource if you are looking for blogs are podcasts that cover the same stuff you do. On the Fediverse at @feedle@mastodon.social
YouTube Creator, Dann Berg who specializes in primarily Obsidian and productivity apps, also has a monthly newsletter that is worth subscribing to.
What are your favorite food memories? Your grandmother’s cooking, dishes from childhood, your spouse’s specialty? Here are mine.
Today for #Junited2024 I’m plugging the blog Beardy Guy Musings by @Denny. You never know what you’re going to get there. It might be tech (like today) or it might be a challenge to be a better citizen. Whatever it is, it will be genuine, honest and from the heart because that’s the way he rolls.
Today on App Addict - Upscayl - a Free and Open-Source Image Enlarger and Enhancer - takes low resolution images from old phones and digital cameras and sharpens them while enlarging up to 4x.
From my 100 Strangers project - I met Tim down at the bus station when I was down there one day taking pictures of travelers. He was super friendly but didn’t give up a lot of biographical detail other than his love of art.
Lots of things that were wildly unpopular and sneered at in the past are now part of ordinary life:
-
Abolition
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Women’s suffrage
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Access to birth control
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Interracial marriage
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Marriage equality
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The 40 hour work-week
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog of Johnny Noble AKA Johnny Decimal, @johnnydecimal@hachyderm.io, truly one of the nicest people on the Internet and someone who walks the walk when it comes to his values as demonstrated by the way he prices his signature program.
I’m extremely emotional over this and was up all night in tears. - How the sad case of a missing cat saved me from getting fired last week.
Remember When They Called It Netiquette? - Once upon a time, we all had to figure out what constitutes manners in our online communities but over the past 30 years we’ve mostly built a culture where folks know how to act, mostly…
From my 100 Strangers project - Veronica - She had a table selling jewelry at a street fair. I noticed her because of the pink hair. I took my first shot from a distance but when she noticed me (laughing) I walked up and asked her to pose. She laughed through the whole thing except of this shot.
Today on AppAddict - Spaces for macOS an app for opening everything you need for different task scenarios - writing, coding, editing photos. It sets up your display with a custom layout and opens/closes everything with a single click.
Me and my 3-year-old grandson.
Tracy - Why am I sticky?
Lou - Because you’re eating ice cream
Tracy - Why am I eating ice cream?
Lou - Because I got it for you
Tracy - Why did you get it for me?
Lou - Because you like it
Tracy - Why do I like it?
Lou - Because it’s good
Tracy - No, it’s VERY good
12 Helpful iOS and macOS Shortcuts for #Obsidian

To avoid awkward copying and pasting and the sometimes long wait before Obsidian is ready to accept text on mobile, iOS and Mac shortcuts are available to create new notes or add content to existing ones. Actions for Obsidian, the collective name for two apps, one for iOS and the other for macOS allows you to automate certain actions in creating notes. It is required for some of these shortcuts to work.
- Add new location - when run from an iOS device prompts you for a file name and then adds both the physical address if available and the GPS coordinates from where you are when you create the note (Requires AFO) Download
- Create Markdown note - creates a text file with a .md extension in a folder you choose on your phone, presumably your default new file location Download
- Add Bullet to Daily Note - in iOS, adds a bulleted item to the end of your current daily note (Requires AFO) Download
- Save email as Obsidian task - in macOS, creates a task formatted bullet (with checkbox) at the end of your current daily note that is hyperlinked back to Mail.app Download
- Get Available Commands - Required by AFO to index commands used by other shortcuts Download
- Create Note - on iOS, creates a new blank note in user defined location ready for text entry. (Requires AFO) Download
- Quick Task Entry - Creates a task at a user defined placeholder in a daily note. Runs on iOS or macOS (Requires AFO) Download
- Sync Contacts with Notes - on a Mac, creates or syncs notes associated with a folder of in the Contacts app with Obsidian. Syns email and phone number only. (Requires AFO) Download
- Capture Web to Obsidian - on iOS, shares the content of a web page from any iOS browser to Obsidian in Markdown format with links and images Download
- Obsidian Web Clipper - iOS shortcut to copy selected text from a Safari webpage and the link to the web page to a new note in a specified location in an Obsidian vault Download
- Add Weather to Daily Note Adds today’s weather at your current location at a user-defined placeholder in your daily note. Works on iOS and macOS. Requires AFO Download
- Add Calendar Events to Daily Note - Adds up to 20 calendar events for the current date from your calendars at a user-defined placeholder in your daily note . Works on iOS and macOS. Requires AFO Download
Looks like today’s trend is people writing up and sharing their blogging journeys, here’s mine. Send yours to @birming@mastodon.world.
The poets were right. There is something especially poignant about an athlete dying young. Some of the best sports writing of the past decade - Steve Prefontaine’s Last Run
It’s Saturday, so I have updated my /now page - with info on ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Rasa Aslan, four TV shows, App Reviews and other blog posts, Samyang Buldak Hot Spicy Chicken Ramen Noodles - banned in Denmark for excessive spice and some hilarious links.
Will It Still Be Social? - what do you think about the proposal allowing people to turn off or limit replies on the Fediverse? Will it turn it into a place where the cool kids talk in front of but not to the plebes? Remove accountability? Become performative, not communicative? Why not just blog?
This Week's Bookmarks - Cool art gallery, Leftist purity, Beautiful streets, Music covers, NY Sandwiches, Landmarks, Biggest Dog

What the Failure of American Communism Should Teach the Left - The Atlantic (archive.ph)
Songs covered by artists of a different gender - Genderswap.fm
New York City’s Best Sandwiches - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Landmarks as they are not often seen
Kevin the Great Dane verified as tallest living dog: “He’s a gentle giant” | Guinness World Records
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog, Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity by J.P. Wing, a guy with an interests list a mile long: flying, hiking, storm chasing, vintage computers, space, Linux, Apple and evidently writing because I enjoy the hell out of his prose. Take a look.
From my 100 Strangers project - I was taking someone else’s portrait outside a bar in Wilmington when Charles looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t help but to take his photo too. The only interaction we had was me asking his name for my notes.
Today on AppAddict - a great single purpose app to create quote graphics. Text Shot by developer @chrishannah@mastodon.social. I saw @robb@social.lol mention it yesterday, so I bought a copy and used it multiple time already.
Looks like I’ve missed the debate on being able to make Fediverse posts that no one is allowed to respond to. Anyone got a link to info on this. It would make me sad to lose the ability to interact with popular folks but I understand people who want to feel safe and free from harassment.
I love it when someone interviews Bob Dylan and instead of asking him the same bullshit questions, he’s been asked a million times like “How did it feel to be the voice of a generation” they ask him questions about current events and music and his creative process. Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging the blog, Canned Dragons by Robert Rackley, @mineinmono@mastodon.world, yet another North Carolinian spreading good will on the IndyWeb. His piece on Connection vs. Isolation really resonated with me.
in 2024, it shouldn’t be too hard to talk about mental health issues, especially when it’s a success story. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 28 years ago, got ongoing treatment and have managed to live a pretty normal and drama free life with lots of good times. Talking About Mental Health
From my 100 Strangers Project - Ed, a volunteer at the NC Zoo seemed completely baffled as to why I would want to get a photograph, but the camera equipment strapped all over my body probably made me look like a pro to him. One doesn’t often get a chance to see retired men in bunny ears.
Today on AppAddict - Angry Ip Scanner - Ever had the sneaking suspicion that someone was using your Wi-Fi? This free and open-source, easy to use scanner will quickly tell you every device connected to your home network.
The Sopranos 25th Anniversary - an interview with the cast members from the iconic HBO show on the 25th anniversary of its premiere with a few surprising revelations.
Today for #Junited2024 - Vocal Shortcuts Will Let You Create Voice Triggers For Any Command (Without Saying Siri) by @matthewcassinelli@mastodon.social. Matthew is the preeminent source for info on Apple Shortcuts.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I’d seen Karl walking around town for years with his blue and gold macaw. When I finally caught up with him and asked to take his portrait, he agreed only on the condition that I also take a picture of my wife and Lucky, the bird.
Today on AppAddict - I bought the disk cloning software SuperDuper! in 2004 and have been receiving updates ever since. It’s great for bootable full-disk backups, incremental backups and more.
The Case for Using #Obsidian Sync

When i used iCloud to sync Obsidian, I saved a whopping $4 a month and got next to no granular control over the process. As an Obsidian sync subscriber, not only am I contributing to a company I value, I also get to control all kinds of things I couldn’t do before. Restoring deleted files either singularly or in bulk is supported. I also get tech support for syncing issues.
Selective Sync

I don’t want to sync a number of larger folders on my phone to help Obsidian load faster, so I can exclude those from search. I don’t need my receipt collection or software serial numbers or receipts on my mobile device and now I don’t have to worry about it. This solves the problem many people have about how many vaults to have. If you don’t want your personal notes on your work computer, it’s very easy to exclude them from syncing without having to create a separate vault.
Choose to sync:
- Folders
- Images
- Audio
- Video
- PDFs
- All other file types
I don’t have much audio and video in my vault, but what i do have, I elect not to sync on mobile for speed reasons.
Vault Configuration Sync

If I find that I’ve made some untraceable changes to my settings, I can take advantage of automatic backup of my settings file to restore them to a known good state.
Sync items:
- Main settings
- Appearance Settings
- Themes and CSS
- Hotkeys
- Active core plugins
- Active community plugins
- Installed community plugins
I elect to sync my settings, hotkeys, appearance and theme between devices, but I can toggle each one of these if I choose.
I can turn plugins on and off depending on what computer I’m using. For example, I just want my home computer to do a GitHub backup, so I turn off that plugin off on my work machine.
The plugins sync allows you to have separate settings for core and community plugins on each device. I use two Macs, one PC, an iPhone and an iPad with the same vault with no issue.
77 Types of Notes to Keep in #Obsidian | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)
15 Example #Obsidian Vaults from Around the Internet | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)
10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)
Down With Southern Mythology, We’re Tired of It It sickens me that after the murder of George Floyd, across the south we managed to finally remove Confederate names from some schools and other public institutions, only to see MAGA loving right-wingers reinstitute them this year.
Today for #Junited2024 I’d like to suggest a GTD post from the blog of Ariadne, Noisy Deadlines, a Brazilian living in Canada who loves winter. Her blog is a good mix of sci-fi, GTD and Internet culture - just the kind of non-pretentious stuff I enjoy. @noisydeadlines@writing.exchange on Mastodon.
From my 100 Strangers project - As is often the case, I started by taking a few pics of Sherry’s dog who wasn’t really much to look at and wouldn’t stand still. I kept taking pictures and talking before moving along. She was one of the friendly folks who sometimes thank me.
Today on AppAddict - The venerable iA Writer, a well-designed Markdown editor, long a favorite of writers and bloggers, with built in checks for cliches, filler words and redundancies, publishing straight to Micro.blog and other platforms. Its hallmark is its focus mode and plain interface.
For the past six weeks I’ve been on a manic tear, cranking out 16-17 blog posts a week – seven app reviews, seven personal, non-technical posts, a few technical articles on productivity and sharing a photograph from my 100 Strangers project each day. I also started a links blog. Here’s my workflow
The Voices in My Head - Supposedly some people don’t have an inner dialog. I don’t know what that would be like because the voices are always present in mine, and they have questions.
Today for #Junited2024, I am featuring an astute post by a blogger I just discovered yesterday, historian Mark Stoneman, @markstoneman@zirk.us, about the difference between broadcast media and social media in the post-Twitter world.
My favorite book about the Vietnam War is Dispatches by Michael Herr based on the reporting he did for Esquire. This article from 1968 about the battle for Hue was the foundation for the book. Hell Sucks
Today on AppAddict - HistoryHound by St. Clair Software is the ultimate search tool for your web history. It covers multiple browsers and RSS readers in a single database and indexes the entire page, not just the title. Compatible with most major browsers.
From my 100 Strangers project - Joseph let me photograph him after I explained the project in detail and gave him a card with the address of where he could view it online, but he never really believed that I didn’t work for the newspaper, although I told him repeatedly that I didn’t.
Murder in Mississippi - the most powerful artwork I have ever seen in person. Many right-wingers refuse to believe this painting is by Norman Rockwell, but it is. It depicts the Mississippi Burning killing of three civil rights workers by the Klan in 1964.
Why I’m Still on Facebook - Yep, being fully aware of its awfulness, I’m still there for reasons.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Carlos and another security guard were standing on the front steps of the library when I asked to take the photos. I think they are so used to dealing with street people that it would be impossible to phase them with any request.
Today for #Junited2024 I’d like to recommend one of my favorite bloggers and all-around friend to the IndyWeb community, Alexandra Wolfe whose poignant post about the death of her father is as good as it gets.
Today on AppAddict - The Many Apps of Sindre Sorhus - Wunderkind, Sindre Sorhus is responsible for more apps on my Mac than any other developer. His mostly free apps include Velja, Hyperduck, Shareful, Aiko, One Thing and Actions.
I’ve completed the /Slash Page Challenge and made as many as I could.
- 📸Photos
- 📘 Bookmarks
- 📰 Blogroll
- Interests
- ⚒️ Colophon
- 📱 Defaults
- 💰Save
- 🌯 Chipotle
- 📡 Feeds
- 👎 Nope
- 📅 Someday
Today for #Junited2024 I am plugging James' Coffee Blog. James is a Scottish technical writer with some truly classic posts on things you can do with your personal website. Find him on Mastodon at @capjamesg@indieweb.social
This Week's Bookmarks - Recipe finder, Excellent advice, Quitting Google, Mullets!, Miss AI contest, Driving cities, Bookshelf creator

Recipe Search with Typesense - Search 2 Million recipes -
25 Bits Of ‘Excellent Advice For Living’ That Apply To Adventure - Semi-Rad.com
How to Quit Google, According to a Privacy Expert | Lifehacker
The Worlds First AI Creator Awards (miss-ai.webflow.io)
Charted: America’s driving capitals (axios.com)
Bookshelf.so - Create your own beautiful book review page with an interactive 3D bookshelf
Today on AppAddict - PopClip is a must have in my productivity stack. It performs a variety of actions on any text I select with the cursor, including sending it to email, messages, Drafts, Obsidian, Google etc. It’s hard to work without it.
From my 100 Strangers project - I photographed Fred’s friend first and really didn’t have any intention of asking for anything else, but the friend told him “Let this guy take your picture” and he obliged.
Today for #Junited2024 I’m plugging @jhpot@mastodon.social, my favorite tech writer for sites like Lifehacker, WSJ, Wired and more. His recent blog posts resonates. Tech is Cool; Business is Boring
All you have to do to bridge your Mastodon account to Blue sky is follow @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy on Mastodon. That will automatically create a bridged account on BlueSky.
Mac Menu Bar is a great resource for recently released apps. Here are the latest ones.
I’ve updated my /now page with info on the classic American novel I am re-reading (Lonesome Dove), the three TV shows I’m balancing, all the blog posts I’ve written and recommended, where I saved $$$ and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.
Today on AppAddict - BetterTouchTool Favorites - I go over the basics of BTT and list my favorite use cases.
From my 100 Strangers project - Alan was standing outside a fancy hotel smoking a cigarette. We talked about the weather for a minute. He told me he was from California. He took his glasses off before I made this portrait
After about 15 seconds of internal debate, I decided to join the /nope page revolution, a @jbaty@social.lol idea.
After a lot of practice, I have been very happily married to the same person for over a decade! The Fourth Time Is a Charm
Today on AppAddict - Keep It Shot leverages AI to rename screenshots in bulk or as you take them and provides a private keyword-based search of your images.
From my 100 Strangers project - When I asked Curtis if I could take his picture for my project he readily agreed and then struck this “gazing into the future” pose that was just perfect.
The Most Popular Apps I've Reviewed
I’ve been amazed since I started writing app reviews online at AppAddict Some of the reviews have been viewed thousands of times. I’ve had reviews mentioned on Lifehacker and The Verge. If you’re curious as to what’s been the most popular, here’s a list.
- FreeTube - a YouTube viewer
- Bebop - Quick capture notes for Obsidian
- Clipboard Managers - A comparison of Mac clipboard managers - Raycast won
- Blip - a cross platform file transfer app
- Applite - an app store for Homebrew
- Omnivore - a free read-it-later app
- Apparency - a Quicklook plugin for apps
- My Applications - gives you detailed info on your installed applications
- Zavala - a free universal outliner
- Scrap Paper - a menu bar notes app that syncs with iOS
Shopping in America Q- Can I get three boxes of Sudafed? A - No, by law that’s too much Q - OK, well, can I get three guns and a pallet of bullets? A - Sure, coming right up.
War is such unpleasant business and the ones we had in the 21st century dragged on so long that people stopped paying attention long before the blood stopped flowing. In my family, though. the reminders are never far away. War and Peace
Today for #Junited2024, all the way from the south of England, I bring you Barry Sampson’s post on adding a banner to his blog for Pride Month. It can be awkward for us 50-something cishet white guys to express our ally status as he explains.
Today on AppAddict - Daisy Disk, the best in class disk space analyzer is still only $9.99. It’s the fastest app of its type and a three-time award winner on the app store.
From my 100 Strangers project - Esteban was in a city park in Columbia, SC taking a walk with his dog. The dog was not walking. He was. I didn’t get the dog’s name, but she was only two years old, so she and her owner hopefully had many more years together.
10 Useful #Obsidian Plugins That Won't Affect Your Plain Text Data

One understandable reason some people are hesitant to use community plugins is the fear that the plain text data they’ve worked hard to create will be altered, negatively affecting the portability of their notes, one of Obsidian’s most attractive features. That’s a wise attitude to take for plugins that affect data, but what about plugins that just make Obsidian easier to use? What’s the reason for not trying those? These 10 plugins don’t leave any code fragments in your notes. They just make Obsidian better.
1. Commander
Commander lets you add and remove commands from the Obsidian interface. I use it to create ribbon bar buttons for shortcuts that add content to my daily note and to run the Linter plugin on demand. Commander can also edit commands, hide commands and for sync customers, choose what devices commands appear on.
2. Editing Toolbar
Even for seasoned Markdown writers, having access to an editing toolbar can come in handy for doing things like indenting or unindenting text. It also has very handy undo/redo buttons, superscript and subscript buttons and convenient color pickers for text and highlights. Inserting code blocks or inline code is also a breeze.
3. File Explorer++
One of the most frequently asked questions on Reddit is how to manually order folders and files. This simple plugin lets you both pin and hide folders and files with a click in the file menu.
4. Mononote
Another simple but useful plugin is Mononote, by the same developer who created the super useful Actions for Obsidian, Mac and iOS shortcuts enhancer. Mononote does one thing, it keeps you from having multiple copies of the same note open at once. If you ever looked at your tab bar and seen multiple copies of your daily note staring at you, install this plugin to prevent that from ever happening again.
5. Note Refactor
Note Refactor helps you split and extract content from your current notes. If you’ve clipped a long web article and you want to break it down into smaller more easily digestible atomic notes, Note Refactor is the tool you want. You can preselect the location where you want your notes to go and even chose a naming convention for them.
6. Plugin Update Tracker
I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I run between 50-60 plugins in my vault at any one time. Plugin Update Tracker lets me know at a glance if I have any updates and to what plugins. It will let me read the release notes and even wait a specified number days before notifying me when updates become available so that the early adopters can get the kinks worked out. If there are plugins you wish to ignore updates from, you can do that too.
7. Read It Later
ReadItLater collects information from your clipboard and creates notes based on the type of content you have saved there. Videos from YouTube, Billibilli, TikTok and Vimeo will be displayed in an inline iFrame based on the clipboard URL. Mastodon toots and URLs will be imported as complete notes generated from nothing more than a URL on your clipboard. It’s one of the easiest ways to get web content in your blog. For plain text, the entire clipboard will be used to create a new note.
8. Recent Files
This plugin displays a list of most recently opened files in the sidebar. Optionally include paths of files which should be excluded from the list. That’s it. but it’s something I use every single day.
9. Tag Folder
I use Tag Folder primarily to do one thing, show me which notes I have forgotten to tag. It will, of course show your tags as folders and even let you create time-based virtual tags for one hour, six hours, 3 days, 7 days and older than 7 days. You can configure ignored tags and folders if you want to.
10. Tag Wrangler
I use this plugin to keep my tags clean. It makes it easy to correct typos (mis-spellings) and capitalization errors.
Our rights and liberties are not gifts from the state, but “the inheritance of a long history of struggles” by abolitionists, labor leaders, feminists and countless others whose “radical” beliefs in human freedom and dignity challenged an unjust system. - Eric Foner in The Nation
Coffee Buying and Referral Linking is my take on how we aim to get a little back from our IndyWeb endeavors. There are lots of ways to support each other and if you want an occasional cup of Joe, I’m cool with that. I’d rather you check out the services I like if you want to do me a solid.
Today for #Junited2024 I want to shout out Marco @esamecar and his µ.blog. He writes great week notes, chock full of juicy software tips. I always look forward to them.
Today on AppAddict - If you have an older Mac and you’d like to run a new and unsupported version of macOS on it, you are in luck. Open Core Legacy Patcher will do the trick. Just don’t try it with the Sequoia beta. It is not patched for that yet.
From my 100 Strangers project - John, in the black fedora, looking every inch the jazz musician he is in real life. I caught him having a smoke and a coffee break from his usual busking downtown. I have had this photo hanging in my living room for a decade. I love it.
I don’t watch YouTube ads but the kids on Reddit do and I’ve found they have a belief that advertising there makes a company unethical. I use NordVPN, which evidently runs a lot of YouTube ads and the kids HATE it with a rabid passion. They go nuts if I bring it up. LOL Capitalism Sucks
My #Obsidian Wish List

As an enthusiastic Obsidian user, I’m happy with the way it works and grateful to the developers for the hard work they have put into the app. I offer the following wish list in good faith and not as a bitch fest or criticism. Some of my wishes may have security complications of which I am not aware and others may be in the works. Some of these are partially achievable with plugins, I am aware but my desire is for more robust native functionality.
1. A way to send HTML emails to Obsidian
I have a way of sending text emails to Obsidian by forwarding them to Dropbox via IFTTT and then having the Mac utility change them to .md files and move them into my vault, but i would love to be able to figure out a way to het HTML emails into Obsidian with the formatting intact.
2. Notifications when files become orphaned
There are plugins that promise to clean orphaned files, but I’d like a way to be notified as it happens so I can fix the issue that caused them to be orphaned or manually delete them on the spot
3. Print as RTF
I don’t print often, but having to export as PDF in order to preserve formatting is too many steps for my liking. I want to be able to have a print function that renders the note as a rich text file and prints it.
4. Dataview queries that render when pasted (like Waypoint does)
When you copy a Dataview query in a note, the system copies the underlying code, not the results of the query. You can’t paste the results. The Waypoint plugin is different. The links it generates can be copied and elsewhere. I’d like to see that extended.
5. Native PDF searching
The Text Extractor plugin allows you to search PDFs, but it creates a bunch of extraneous files in your .Obsidian folder. If there is a way around that, I’d sure like to see it implemented. I do not keep any complicated PDFs in my vault because of the search limitation, something i was able to do in Evernote without a problem.
6. Collaboration in the form of shared folders
I’d like an easy way to share data on a per-folder basis with another Obsidian user. There are some hacky ways to do sharing but I want it without the hacking, so I could share something with my mom if I wanted to.
7. iOS/Mac share sheet integration (out)
There are a lot of ways to get data into Obsidian via other apps, shortcuts and plugins, but not so many ways to share data out without resorting to copy and pasting or PDFs. Plenty of other apps have sharing, why not Obsidian?
8. Built-in search and replace across notes
You can use a pluginor third party text editors like BBEdit or Notepad++ to do global search and replace and it should not be difficult to add a feature like that to a text based program like Obsidian.
9. Background syncing on mobile (in the way that email fetches in the background)
Plenty of mobile apps can check for updates in the background, from Instagram to email. Why can’t Obsidian check for updates in the background for people who pay for sync so that we don’t have such an interminable wait when we launch the mobile app?
10. Integration with IFTTT
As a long time IFTTT user, I seeall the integrations that other notes apps like Evernoteand Notion have and wonder why we can’t have the same thing in Obsidian. It would drastically improve automation and data collection in so many areas.
Artificial Intelligence and Me, an Average Guy - how much has AI had an impact on me and my life as Lou the Computer Guy just living my life down here in NC? Not much actually. Folks can just calm down. The sky isn’t falling.
Today for #Junited2024, I’m giving a shout out to one of my favorite microbloggers @pratik. I appreciate his political perspectives, tv and movie choices, acerbic wit and overall friendliness. A Love Affair with Blogs
Today on AppAddict - My first negative review. Yep, definitely not recommending MagicMenu from iBoysoft due to limited functionality, bait and switch pricing and lack of an advertised free trial. If you want to add to Finder’s right-click menu, there are better options.
From my 100 Strangers project - Teresa and Peter proved that people will accommodate you if you have a camera. The frame was not my prop, it just happened to be leaning against a table at the flea market where I was scouting for subjects. I handed it to them and asked them to pose and they did.
I did the IT onboarding for the technology director of our new medical school today. When it was time to set up 2FA, she handed me her phone and I commented that it was an Android. “I hate Apple” she says. She’s probably pretty cool but that was a BAD first impression.
Today I continue my 59-year streak of not installing beta software on my thousands of dollars' worth of Apple devices because I’m too goddamned impatient to wait until it’s ready for prime time.
The suppression of speech which criticizes Israel or puts forth a Palestinian point of view is antithetical to what are supposed to be the values of higher education in specific and America in general Columbia Law Review taken offline for publishing an article by a Palestinian Law Student
The phenomena of Trail Magic on long distance hiking trails like the AT, PCT and Continental Divide Trail. 100DaysToOffload 10/100
Today for #Junited2024 I’m featuring the blog of Chicagoland’s own Jason Kratz and his recent post on social media usage.I love the gut level honesty that comes through on all of Jason’s posts.
Today on AppAddict - I explore the world of keyboard driven application switchers featuring the FOSS app AltTab, a hidden Keyboard Maestro feature and more.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Hippie Mike was hustling t-shirts at the flea market and had no problem having his portrait taken or giving me a free shirt so I could use it and the picture to remember the experience.
Working on my /slash page homework from @robb@social.lol - Today I’ve updated my /defaults. There have been some additions since I created this is January, but no deletions. I can never have enough software.
My 10 Favorite Things About #Obsidian

1. The Fiddling
A pox on people who complain that it’s too tempting to fiddle with your Obsidian setup and therefore their ability to make more widgets for the man is negatively impacted. I love Obsidian because I can never stop optimizing it. If I wanted something that was set it and forget it, I’d used TextEdit and miss out on so much joy.
2. The Plugins
I do not understand the weirdos who take perverse pride in ignoring the 1600+ ways to make Obsidian better. OK, I do get it if you don’t want to affect the plain text functionality of your notes, but refusing to use plugins that do nothing but extend Obsidian’s functionality is just masochism. I love the obscure ones the best
3. The Daily Note
My Daily Note gives me a comprehensive record of a snapshot in time, complete with weather, appointments, a running narrative, a gratitude list, tasks completed and more. It’s fun to complie each day and it provides a great reference for what’s been going on in my life.
4. Writing in Markdown
I do almost all of my writing in Obsidian. All of my blog posts start there. Although I have the editing toolbar installed, I rarely need it any more as Markdown is pretty easy to learn and use. I love the added functionality that plugins like Paste URL Into Selection add to the writing experience.
5. Obsidian Sync
I use Obsidian on two Macs, a PC, an iPhone and an iPad. Using Obsidian sync allows me to have customized plugins on every instance, to omit unneeded folders on mobile, to support Obsidian development by being a paying customer. Since I have a .edu email address, I get a 40% discount.
6. Interoperability
I love how the plain text/Markdown features in Obsidian along with it’s local file storage allow me to leverage other apps in my portfolio to extend the functionality of Obsidian. Whether it’s using Drafts or Bebop for quick capture, or doing a search and replace across my entire vault with BBEdit, there are a big selection of companion apps to make Obsidian more powerful.
7. It’s Better than Evernote
I was an Evernote user from 2009-2023 and loved the automations it offered natively and via IFTTT. I’ve figured out how to send emails to my vault, and import my Raindrio.io bookmarks and every other thing I used to do with Evernote, plus I get all the other Obsidian deliciousness.
8. Tags, Folders and Bookmarks
I started my vault with imports from Evernote and all of my tags carried over. Since then I’ve maintained the tagging habit and it provides a lot of usefulness when combined with Dataview. I also use folders for organization and bookmarks for work in progress notes.
9. The Obsidian Community
Whether it’s Reddit, Discord, the official Obsidian forum or all the various YouTubers and bloggers, there are a ton of resources available to get new ideas and solve problems . I know of no other program with such a depth of material available.
10. Backup Options
I spend a lot of time working on my Obsidian notes and would be devastated to lose any data. That’s why I have a TimeMachine backup, a Google Drive backup, a GitHub backup, plus Obsidian sync. It’s all done with set it and forget it methods.
Today for #Junited2024, I’m featuring a post by @petebrown@social.lol, Apologies and Forgiveness Are Not Transactional. Pete’s blog, Exploding Comma is full of acerbic wit, astute observations and lots of music recommendations. This is GenX at it’s finest.
Today on AppAddict - Applite is like an App Store for the entire Homebre Catalog. It downloads and updates apps. It’s free and open source.
In the 1970s, for two idyllic years, I lived in a small North Carolina town beside the Cape Fear River in at atmosphere reminiscent of Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show. It was a golden era
From my 100 Strangers Project - Bethany was playing a Neil Young song I could hear before I saw her. She didn’t even have an open guitar case for people to throw money into. She was pretty good too.
Saturday, the day I update my /now page - with info on a great book by Octavia Butler, three entertaining TV shows, all the stuff I wrote and reviewed this week, a shout-out to Apple Warranty Repair and the cool stuff I bookmarked.
This Weeks Bookmarks - Nickelback Hate, Kitchen Tips, Beach Reads, Best Sci-Fi books, Best Cities for Food, Most Expensive Paintings, 25 Era Defining Photos

Why Do People Hate Nickelback So Much? A Statistical Analysis (statsignificant.com)
91 Kitchen Tricks and Tips From Our Expert Cooks (realsimple.com)
51 Beach Reads for a Relaxing Summer 2024 (rd.com)
The 21 best science fiction books of all time – according to New Scientist writers | New Scientist
The World’s 20 Best Cities for Food Right Now (timeout.com)
List of most expensive paintings - Wikipedia
The 25 Photos That Defined the Modern Age - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Adults Making Friends - for some adult men, including this one, making new friends can be challenging - unless you are an IndyWeb blogger. Some reflections on the reality of online relationships.
Today on AppAddict - EtreCheckPro, System Report on Steroids - a great free app for finding out more about your Mac. It’s often used in troubleshooting forums and Apple Support Communities to give the experts a peek into what might be causing you issues.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Leon, the fish whisperer, taken on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the fishing village of Buxton. I like to take pictures of people working as long as there is no need to hassle them to ask a couple of questions.
My Longest Day - On goal setting and the time I tried and failed to ride my bike 200 miles on the hottest day of the year, and lessons learned.
Today on AppAddict - Dropover, Best in Class - There are no shortage of shelf apps on the Mac, but Dropover rises to the top because of its feature set and affordability. Deeply integrated with cloud services, with Shortcuts and widgets it’s just a pleasure to use.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Bobby from New Jersey (with the accent to prove it), who I met while he was in the city for the day on unspecified business. The backwards baseball cap is part of the Jersey Shore uniform.
Everyone, I hope, has memories of their favorite teacher from school. Mine was Chuck Stanton, my 11th grade English teacher. He was a prince among men and a credit to his profession. 11th Grade English
Today on AppAddict - Apps to Enhance Apple Shortcuts - I have dozens of Shortcuts that I use every day, including ones designed to work with Micro.blog. Some of these require helper apps and these apps are featured in today’s post.
Just heard from the Apple Repair Depot - they have fixed my broken MacBook Air display at no charge to me and have already shipped it back to me. There’s a tech at the depot is trying to do right by the customers. I’m lucky he pulled my ticket. I thought I’d be paying $598 for the repair!
Don't Be Afraid to Use the Linter Plugin in #Obsidian

One of the most powerful and seemingly complicated plugins in the Obsidian directory is Linter. With nine different tabs in its settings panel, it intimidated me until I spent some time looking it over and testing it on a small folder of test notes. Just installing it will do nothing to your notes. All the features are set to run on command initially and you can leave them that way perpetually if you just want to apply Linter settings manually to one folder of notes at the time. Linter describes itself thus: Format and style your notes. Linter can be used to format YAML tags, aliases, arrays, and metadata; footnotes; headings; spacing; math blocks; regular Markdown contents like list, italics, and bold styles; and more with the use of custom rule options.
To be clear, this is how you can select default file properties for all your notes or set custom file properties for notes one folder at the time. Using Linter will standardize the formatting of almost every element of your notes.
If you have a lot of notes imported from different sources and especially if you have been using Obsidian since before the implementation of file properties, back when YAML front matter was created manually, you should be able to standardize the appearance and formatting of your vault. If you are a relatively new user, you can get a lot of benefit by setting some standards with Linter so that they apply to your notes going forward. I use the Commander Plugin to create a button in the Ribbon Bar to run Linter. I also created a keyboard shortcut to run Linter. The plugin creates an option in the right-click context menu to Lint a folder at the time.
General Tab - This is where you tell Linter when to apply its settings. If you choose “Lint on save”, the plugin will only apply its settings when you manually press Ctrl+S. If you select “Lint on change, then the settings will apply as you edit notes”. This tab is also where you can set Linter to ignore folders so that settings never apply to them. I set my Templates and Attachment folders to be ignored.
The YAML Tab - The settings I turn on are Add Blank Line After YAML, Dedupe YAML aliases, Dedupe, YAML tags, Dedupe YAML arrays. I set Linter to move all YAML tags to the front matter. In the sorting section, I turn on sorting for aliases, tags and arrays in ascending alphabetical order. In the YAML key sort section I turn on sorting and enable priority sorting for the following properties: title: author: url: tags: creation date: modification date: This will create those properties in every note I create in that exact order, with additional properties included beneath them in ascending alphabetical order.
I turn on the automatic inclusion of creation date and modification date using the YYYY-MM-DD format. This is useful when building certain Dataview queries later.
The only other setting I turn on in this tab is the YAML title which I set to match the file name.
H1 Headings Tab - On this tab I turn on Capitalize Headings, Ignore Cased Words, and Remove Trailing Punctuation Headings
Footnote Tab - I don’t make any changes here as I don’t use footnotes
Content Tab - I turn on every setting on this tab for consistency’s sake except for default language for code settings since I don’t use code fences for anything other than markdown.
Spacing Tab - On this tab I turn on Consecutive Blank Lines, Convert Tabs to Spaces, Empty Line Around Blockquotes, All Heading Blank Lines, Line Break at Document End, Paragraph Blank Lines, Remove Empty Lines Between List Markers, Remove Link Spacing, All the settings for trailing spaces
Paste Tab - I turn on everything except Remove Leftover Footnotes
Custom Tab - No changes
Debug Tab - No changes
The Linter user manual can be accessed here.
This is a powerful tool. Before applying it to your entire vault, ensure you have a backup.
This year, more pictures will be taken than in the first 150 years of photography’s history. I wonder how people interact with their photos collection in the cell phone age Looking at Pictures
Today on AppAddict - Seasons Streaming Companion aims to help you figure out how to alternate what you watch. to allow you to turn off streaming services for periods of time to save money through its built-in algorithm. It also helps you find new show and movies while calculating the cost.
From my 100 Strangers Project - This gentleman’s name is Thor. He repeatedly cautioned me to stay safe “out here”.
Not to beat a dead horse any more than need be, but I feel like I should give a little background on why I am so offended by ESPN’s decision to waste time letting Lance Armstrong bask in public attention again. What’s the Matter with Lance?
Who in their right mind is going to give over any more of their precious life’s minutes to watch this heartbreaking asshole soak up any more attention? GTFO
I’m reminded today that the web is an ephemeral place and there is no promise that the people who are here today will be here tomorrow. It has always been that way, of course but it hurts more deeply when one is happy with the status quo. Those looking for a sense of permanence need look elsewhere.
I am 100% on Team Work to Live vs the other way around. Some ruminations on the meaning of work and where it fits in with the rest of life. On Work
Save the web by being nice by Andrew Stephens, my #Junited2024 entry
There are different levels of Niceness but roughly from least to most effort:
- Liking or upvoting a URL on a forum or social media that someone else posted.
- Commenting on a URL somebody else posted saying how much you enjoyed the content.
- Posting a URL on social media/discord server yourself, suggesting that others might also like to read it.
- Dropping a quick note of appreciation to the author via email or DM.
- Actually paying money for the content via Patreon, etc.
A great description of professional athletes “They exist for history, and we take joy from them because we accept that they are superior at an arbitrary assortment of skills that we have collectively decided have value.”
Today on AppAddict - A Privacy and Security Toolkit featuring Nord VPN, Little Snitch Firewall, BlockBlock real time scanner and uBlock Origin for browser-based safety.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Officer McGuire, taken right after he made a big show of scolding a woman for taking two steps away from her suitcase. She didn’t even speak English. He could have handled it differently.
What’s Your Super Power? - mine is the ability to sleep at any time in any place, one of the very usable skills that the Army taught me. All you have to do is enlist and they will teach you too.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Doug, the old-time rock and roller. I took some pictures of him and his friends jamming at a local park (Steppenwolf covers were tops!) and then talked with him later. He’s been playing guitar for nearly 50 years. He looks the part.
Today’s share the love link for #Junited2024 is a recent one from @jsonbecker - Takes Spread Like Wildfire
Today on AppAddict - Have you heard all the nerds talking about Obsidian but you’re not sure what you can do with it? Today’s post is for you
Absolutely gutted - opened up my MacBook after returning home from a weekend trip to a broken display. Got no idea how it happened. Nearest Apple Store is 75 miles away. FML for real.
I have been poor in my life. I grew up in a variety of family situations between my parents' marriages and remarriages and time spent living with other relatives. I wore hand me down clothes from my cousins and was glad that my grandmother could sew for my sister Y’all, They Lied
Today on AppAddict - Apps that do one thing well - Three apps that haven’t succumbed to bloat and can’t order you an Uber - Mission Control Plus, QuitAll and One Thing.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Larry - This is the difference you can make in someone’s attitude in just a few seconds if you smile at them, say “thank you” and give them a thumbs up. Shortly after I took this is when I started talking first and photographing second.
I have updated my #Junited2024 page with a link to a great post from Brent Simmons entitled Corporations Are Not to Be Loved. @brentsimmons
10 More Random #Obsidian Tips
Last week I posted some of the things I learned to do in Obsidian through trial and error and it went over pretty good, so here are 10 more. I want to show folks not to be afraid of extensions. Many of them don’t alter your data in any way so you won’t get locked in by using them. They just perform actions that make Obsidian run in a more customized way for you.
1. Have Obsidian Open to the Same Page Every Time You Start the App
By default, Obsidian opens up to the state you left it in when you closed it. With the Homepage community plugin - you can use any note, canvas, or workspace as a homepage. Alternatively, choose a random note, or use your Daily or Periodic Notes. You can decide what happens to old tabs that were left open - keep them, replace the last note, or remove them all.
2. Assign a Basic Set of File Properties to Every Note You Create
You can do this using the Linter plugin. The setting is on the YAML tab of the options for Linter.

3. Edit the File Properties of Multiple Notes at One time
If you have multiple notes where you’d like to add or remove file properties in one fell swoop without having to edit them each individually, the use the Multi-Properties plugin. It works for tags or any other file property you want.
4. Send an Email to Your Obsidian Vault (for Mac users)

Set up an IFTTT applet to create a text file in a cloud service like based on an email you send to a certain address. Then use the app, Hazel, to have the file renamed with a .md extension and moved to your vault. More information on setting this up
5. Quickly Capture Data to Your Obsidian Vault on iOS
The key to this at this point is using the right third-party app. I personally use Drafts most of the time, but have recently been experimenting with a new app, Bebop and with Fleeting Notes. The Obsidian roadmap states that they are hard at work improving the native abilities of Obsidian on mobile. More software to complement Obsidian.
6. Search And Replace Text Across Your Entire Vault at Once
To do this, you can use the free features of different power-users text editors I use Notepad++ (PC) and BBedit (Mac) for multi-file search and replace. They’re both fast, handle case-matching, and the basic features are free. Vscode is another favorite and it is cross-platform.

7. Automatically Sync a Backup Copy of Your Vault to a Cloud Service Every Night While You Sleep
You need a couple of utilities to make this happen. The first is a file-syncing utility that runs automatic syncs. I use Sync Folders Pro, a $9 app from the app store. Then you need an app that automatically launched your sync program. On the Mac you can use Lingon X, Keyboard Maestro or Alarm Clock Pro. More backup information.
8. Import Entire Web Pages with Nothing More Than a URL on The Clipboard
One of the features of the ReadItLater pluginis to create a a new based on nothing more than a URL on your clipboard. You just copy an address from a web page you want to save, switch to Obsidian and activate it ReadItLater from the command pallet. It’s that fast and that easy. More ways to import web pages
9. A Wizard to Build Dataview Queries
There is a free tool you can use to help with the learning curve with Dataview. “The Basic Dataview Query Builder will guide you through some questions and put together a Dataview query based on your answers. You can use this query as-is in your vault or as a starting point to refine a more advanced query.
10. Get Ideas for Notes or Vaults You Can Create in Obsidian
This Weeks Bookmarks - 50 things to know, Weird roadside attractions, Summer movies, Toxic reality TV, Recipes, YouTube games, Free money

50 things I know - by Sasha Chapin #1 is 1. I know what makes people grow more reliably than anything else. It is: taking on a difficult project with some amount of public accountability. This can be large or small: a lecture series, a business, a blog, a house, a child, etc.
Weird Roadside Attractions in Every State to Visit on a Road Trip - Thrillist - Thanks to Jarrod Blundy
The 31 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2024 | TIME - How may movies will you see at the theater this summer?
Is “Love Is Blind” a Toxic Workplace? | The New Yorker - You really don’t want to be on a reality show.
JustTheRecipe - Paste in a URL and this website will remove all of the fluff from the page and leave you with just the recipe to make it easier to read and cook.
YouTube - Everybody’s getting into gaming these days. YouTube joins the slowly growing list of companies with gaming initiatives, rolling out its Playables program across mobile and desktop. To play, simply visit YouTube’s website or Android / iOS app and look for Playables in the sidebar. YouTube will let players save their progress and keep track of high scores. There are over 75 games to choose from, including chess and crossword games to more popular casual mobile titles like Angry Birds Showdown!, Trivia Crack, and Cut the Rope.
MissingMoney.com | Search for Unclaimed Property MissingMoney.com is the official Unclaimed Property website of the National Association of State Treasurers
US State Governments and several Canadian Provinces, through their partnership with the leading, trusted authority in unclaimed property—the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA)—provide this free, safe, and secure site to the public. New properties are added daily, so start your search now and check back often!
It’s Saturday and for the 22nd week in a row, I’ve updated my /now page with info on some very good blogs, TV shows, what I wrote this week, some killer sandals and the web sites that made their way into my personal bookmarks.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Brandon gladly pulled off his headphones to talk when I asked him what he was listening to (The Fugees) on a Charlotte side street. He was surprised that I knew them, and I was surprised he was listening to something that old. We agreed that Lauryn Hill is a genius.
With apologies to REM, my new post Stand in the Place Where You Live examines the paradox wherein everyone professes to support the troops but no one wants to live near them. Life in a military town.


My Junited2024 page is up, with the first entry by @tracydurnell who wrote a classic piece last year on crafting a blog post.
Today on AppAddict - Play: Save Videos, Watch Later is a $2.99 app in the App Store that lets you add videos to your watch later list that can then be tagged or sorted by any criteria. A universal app, Play can be curated on your Mac and then watched on your AppleTV. A great app.
Looking forward, sometimes it’s OK not to live in the moment but instead to revel in what’s coming. For WeblogPoMo2024, the last entry.
Today on AppAddict - Default Folder X an OG App for Mac Power Users. It’s used to streamline and enhance finding, opening, saving and moving files and folders.
From my 100 Strangers Project - This is Amayra, her mom and auntie at the India Festival held yearly at the NC state fairgrounds in Raleigh. There were groups of kids putting on cultural performances and it seemed like they all had one or two stressed out parents in tow.
What do you hate the most about Windows and why is it printing? (After a single user’s computer started demanding driver updates to a 10-year-old printer that hasn’t even had an update in years)
I like your blog if… - my criteria for adding blogs to my RSS feed. I’m not too picky. You’re probably in there already. For WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Two free apps from Objective-See, BlocKBlock and KnockKnock, both designed to alert you to the installation of persistent apps on your Mac. If you keep your Mac up to date and only install apps from the app store, you are probably OK. If you install from elsewhere, get these.
From my 100 strangers project - Tonya from Raleigh was in the coastal town of Beaufort, NC to attend the annual Pirate Festival held there because it’s the final resting place of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s ship.
For all of you who have ever done tech support, here’s what happened when an entire company changed their email signatures to a 9,000x14,000 12MB Photoshop generated PDF. The Horror
Dont’t worry about it was my grandpa’s solution for anxiety. We know it isn’t quite that simple, but please folks, there’s a difference between a cell phone and cocaine. Today for WeblogPoMo2024.
Today on AppAddict - AnyList is my choice for recipes, groceries and general list management for things like packing and planning camping trips. I tried other apps like Paprika and Mela, but AnyList just hits the sweet spot.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Al was starting to feel a little anxious. He’d gotten separated from his wife at the flea market and was getting ready to go look for her. He declined my offer to help and told me that he was sorry for not smiling.
We watched the series finale of The Good Doctor tonight, after having watched all seven seasons of it as they happened. It was a good show celebrating neurodiversity in specific and diversity in general.
Do you use the Internet the way you want to? I don’t. In order for me to do that, I’d need an extra few hours every day and i wouldn’t be 7,000 RSS articles behind. How I Internet for WeblogPomo2024
I have referred to my wife, the ultra-running grandma, as Wonder Woman for years. Today a gift from a random Internet stranger arrived in the mail. Things like this chase the toxic away.
Today on AppAddict - Homebrew for Mac, a command line package manager offers a wide variety of tools that may look scary to non-CLI users but are actually easy to use and quite helpful. My five favorites
From my 100 Strangers Project - In Charleston, SC, it seems that many of the working-class people are in the service industry. I found Joquandre and a companion having a smoke behind the brew/pub where they work. I don’t think I have ever photographed a friendlier person.
I enjoy writing an app review every day and I have gotten so much positive feedback but all it takes is one asshole to go negative at me and I start to question myself. I’ve been on the Internet way too long for stuff like that to bother me, yet it still does sometimes.
I will always believe we should honor fallen troops by doing everything we can to make sure no one ever dies in dubious future wars. When we sacrifice our young people, it should mean something lasting. This is my grandmother’s brother, Gratton McFadyen, who died fighting fascists in Italy.
The Mayor of Kingstown, one of the the best TV shows of the past few years is back this week for season 3.
That time in the 90s when I went to a gun show in a Clinton-Gore t-shirt just to screw with the crazies, whose level of insanity I severely underestimated.
Today on AppAddict - I did a comparison of file finding apps before settling on Houdah Spot as my top pick for its customizable templates and huge selection of search criteria. The runner up was Tembo for quick searches for a single item.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Eric and Lisa were hanging out with the other Drama Club kids outside the Arts Center downtown when I asked them to pose, which they did in totally appropriate fashion.
Tomorrow for #WeblogPoMp2024 I’m posting the story of what happened when I wore a Clinton-Gore t-shirt to a gun show in the South the same year of the Oklahoma City bombing.
My favorite man - without a doubt, it’s my son Drew, relentlessly upbeat, funny, an autodidact and all-around good guy and role model. For WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Lingon X, a tool for examining everything running in the background on your Mac and for scheduling your own events (app launches, scripts, file moves, emails, reminders etc.)
From my 100 Strangers Project - Her name is Isabella. She is from Ghana in West Africa. I had a bowl of spicy peanut butter soup she prepared and brought to me in her restaurant.
10 Random But Helpful #Obsidian Tips
1. Sort All Your Attachments in A Folder That Mirrors Your Vault
With the Attachment Management community plugin, you can have all your attachments renamed to match the note they are attached to and arranged in a sub-folder that matches the folder arrangement of your vault.
2. Add a Web Page to Your Vault on iOS
This one is just an iOS shortcut [that works with any browser, not just Safar](RoutineHub • Clip Entire Web Pages to Obsidian in iOS 17). You’ll need Actions for Obsidian to make it work.
3. Create a Callout with Links to All the Notes You Created Today
This requires the Dataview community plugin
> [!abstract]Today's New Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
> ```
4. Have New Notes Give You a Popup To Name Them
This requires the Templater community Plugin. This snippet gives you a pop-up when you first create your notes asking you to name it at that point. You type the name into the resulting dialog box and that’s that taken care of. (Note: This snippet goes at the very top of your note at Line 1. It creates the three tick marks that are the beginning of the code block for your properties.)
<%*
let title = tp.file.title
if (title.startsWith("Untitled")) {
title = await tp.system.prompt("Title");
await tp.file.rename(title);
}
tR += "---"
%>
5. Automatically Download Images from Any Web Page You Import
The default behavior is for the web pages you download to link the images the original source, but you can automate having them downloaded so the links don’t get broken. All you have to do to make this happen is install the community plugin Local Images Plus and change the setting to “Automatically Processing”
6. Create a Map of Content Automatically for Any Folder or Subfolder That You Can Copy and Paste as Plain Text
If you use Dataview to create MOCs, good luck exporting or copying them. You need two plugins for to make that happen Folder Note and Waypoint.

7. Use Cool Icons With All of Your Obsidian Folders
If you’d like to visually enhance your folders like shown below, install the Iconize community plugin.

8. Import Entire Articles from Omnivore, Not Just Highlights and Notes
If you want to use the free red-it-later service to import the entire text of web pages instead of the default behavior which just brings in highlights and notes, you can tweak your article template like this.
> # {{{title}}}
> #Omnivore
>
> [Read on Omnivore]({{{omnivoreUrl}}})
> [Read Original]({{{originalUrl}}})
>
> {{#note}}
>
> {{{note}}}
> {{/note}}
>
> {{{ content }}}
9. Customize Your Sidebars
In Obsidian, you can drag and drop elements like notes, links, or files to the sidebars to move or create new links. Simply drag the element you want to move and drop it onto the sidebar where you want it to be placed.

10. To Add a Geotag and Timestamp to a Note on iOS
This one requires Drafts, which all Mac/iOS users should have any way. This action will append the info to your daily note but it is easy to edit to create a note instead of appending it.
People who use nothing but the terminal are different than the people who flex by telling you they use nothing but the terminal.
This Week's Bookmarks- Learning guides, free transcription, A better Google, income info, YouTube transcripts, communication secrets, Apple's Top 100 albums

The Curricula is a website to help you learn “anything” by generating a guide and resources. I’ve been curious about the history ot the mountain town of [Morganton, NC](the Curricula) and what I was given was a summarized learning path and links to books, articles, and videos for each area of the past: Native Americans, European colonization, Civil War and reconstruction, Industrialization and economic growth, Key figures in its history
Check out notta.ai, which for heavy users is $8.25 per month and offers 1,800 minutes (30 hours) of transcription. Notta’s free plan provides 120 minutes, which should be sufficient for most people. I’ve also noticed that Notta is faster and just as accurate than other services.
You may have noticed that recent changes in Google searches are making things hard and not easier to find. If that’s your experience, this is for you. How I Made Google’s “Web” View My Default Search (tedium.co)
It’s interesting to see where our current family income places us in relation to the other people in our area, and even more interesting to see that played out at different spots nationwide. It makes a good case for people doing remote work..Upper, Middle, Lower Class in Charts: Percentages, Income by State (businessinsider.com)
The future is here. You can read YouTube now. YouTube Transcript - read YouTube videos
Why can some people effortlessly connect with anyone while others struggle to converse? Conversational skills can be learned, practiced, and mastered. The author sits down with Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of Supercommunicators.
Watch / Listen Now
While I disagree vehemently with the results, especially the top 10, everyone should take a look at Apple’s version of the Top 100 Albums of All Time just to see where their opinions falls alongside the so-called experts. For the record, Aretha > Beyonce, All Green > Frank Ocean and where are Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Clash?
I’ve updated my /now page with details on a classic book, a new TV series, links to lots of writing and app reviews, info on a great place in NC to visit and the various bookmarks I collected this week. Amerpie.lol/now
My riff on minimalism and how it’s not for me for WeblogPoMO2024. Despite driving a 2005 Camry, wearing basically the same thing every day and not moving house once in 30 years, I am not a minimalist. I don’t go for expensive things but rather the things I like in great cluttered numbers.
Today on AppAddict - Keka triples the types of compressed files you can open vs. what is built into macOS. It also increases the types of compressed files you can create and adds 256-bit encryption with it’s simple drag and drop interface.
Robert Birming is organizing a June blogging activity for folks who enjoyed the April Micro.blog photo challenge and this month’s WeblogPoMO2024 writing and posting exercise. You can contact me or Robert for more info.
I was 14 when the Greensboro Massacre occurred. Despite being recorded on videotape, the KKK and Nazis were able to gun down left-wing labor organizers and escape conviction in multiple trials. As an adult I met and worked with some of the survivors. Today for WeblogPoMo2024 The Greensboro Massacre
Today on AppAddict - Just Press Record is the OG of audio recording and transcription apps. It’s a $4.99 purchase in the app store and unlike some of the free apps out there, it does zero data collection.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I asked, “What’s your name, young man” and he said “Bobby, sir” and every time I see this photo, I think “There’s Bobby, sir.” That’s his sister with him. They were at a park down by the Congaree River in Columbia, SC.

Cheer up Texans and Floridians, maybe you don’t live in the most backwards states after all. Here is NC, our legislature is close to banning all masks in public even for cancer patients.
I made a Colophon at https://amerpie.lol/colophon if anyone can be arsed to take a look and see if I did it right. 24 hours ago, I didn’t even know what that word meant. Thanks to Robb Knight and his /Slash page site for the inspiration.
Our grandson Connor is kind of stoic and not given to big expressions of emotion, but last night when he found we’d been able to get a car for him that can be outfitted with the hand controls he needs because of mobility issues, he was all smiles. I can’t tell you how much I love this picture.
My rules for me - A few years back, I wrote my own secular version of the 10 Commandments (actually 12), a set of principals I wanted to try and live by. I’m not batting 1.000 but most days I come pretty close. For WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Lockdown Privacy Desktop - A simple free open-source firewall with pre-configured rules, a good choice if you are setting up a Mac for less advanced users or want no hassle protection.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Lydia - The very first street portrait I ever took. It was totally spontaneous. This woman walked by my wife and I on the sidewalk with our cameras and spoke to us. I instantly asked he if she let me take her photo. She told me she’d modeled some before tattoos.
When my kids were little my wife went on a trip and my daughter made a list to give her when she got home of “Mean Things Dad Did While You Were Gone”. There was one thing on the list. Allegedly, I had not only slammed a pot pie on her plate, but I had made it touch the rice already there. That’s it
Apple’s Top 10 Albums are a joke, designed 100% to pander to the demographic their market study said would be most likely to subscribe after seeing it. Aretha > Beyonce. Al Green > Fran Ocean. Where are the Stones, Led Zeppelin, REM, The Clash, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan? GTFO
Brushes With Celebrity - Celebrity culture is weird. Even if we reject it, there is still a certain feeling when a brush with it happens to us. Reflections on the feeling and an invitation to share yours today for WeblogPoMo2024.
Today on AppAddict - MusicBox is a read-it-later service, except it’s for music, not text. If you find a song or album from Spotify, Apple Music or Tidal but don’t have time to listen, add it to MusicBox where you can see it’s metadata or use shortcuts to automate things.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I didn’t even ask Bob and Sherry about the beer cans they were wearing around their necks. I’ve always loved the fun look in her eyes in this photo though.
April was the photo challenge on Micro.blog. May has been all about WeblogPoMo2024. Is there anything going in June?
Using Obsidian as a Life Record

Obsidian is powerful and extensible enough to fill many roles: academic notes, CRM, blogging center etc. One space it fills admirably is as a life record. Using a combination of native and community plugins, you can use Obsidian as a way to record every facet of your life that you want to preserve, from health metrics to media consumption.
Your Daily Note
The hub of a life record is usually the daily note. Using a template, you can record a variety of information. In my own setup, I record the following:
- Wake time
- Status (work, home, travel)
- Daily weather
- Appointments
- Things I learned
- A chronological record of the day
- Gratitude list
- Notes created that day
- Notes modified that day
- Tasks completed from my task manager (Things 3)
Other metrics that are popular to record are body weight and exercise. The Obsidian Tracker Plugin is useful for generating charts and graphs for any metic you can capture numerically.
Task Management with Things 3 and Obsidian
Media Consumption
Using RSS feeds from popular services like Goodreads (for books), Trakt (for movies and TV) and Last.fm (for music) you can automate recording your media consumption. Additionally you can gather information on video games, board games, and manga using the Media DB plugin.
Automating Obsidian - Generate Notes About Your Media Consumption via RSS - Books, TV, Movies, Music
Web Content
If you are inclined to save content from the web, there are a variety of ways to import pages into your vault. Read-it0later services like Omnivore and Readwise have plugins that automate imports. If you want to import pages on a case by case basis, you can use the browser plugin Mark Download, or community plugins like Slurp, Read It Later or Extract URL Content. There is also a bookmarklet written by Obsidian CEO u/kepano to import web pages or excerpts. On IOS, a shortcut works the best.
The Omnivore to Obsidian Connection Enhanced
All the Ways to Get Web Content Into Obsidian
MarkDownload - The Browser Extension that Works With Obsidian
One of the things people miss when transitioning from Evernote to Obsidian is the custom email address used to send information straight to their notes. Obsidian doesn’t have that feature built in but there are still ways to achieve the end result. Readwise has a “mail to Readwise” feature that will in turn import into Obsidian. My personal choice is an IFTTT applet that creates text files in my Dropbox account that are then converted to markdown and imported into my vault by Hazel, a Mac file management app.
How to Send an Email to Your Obsidian Vault
Other Info
I also keep notes on restaurants where I eat. My template has property fields for location, web site, type of cuisine and rating the body of the note has bullet points for each visit recording the day, who I was with and what I ordered.
For places I visit, I use either the MapView plugin or a Drafts action that captures geolocation.
I have a people template that records basic contact information (email, phone, address) and the body of the note is bullet points recording date and time of interactions with the person and details of the meeting/visit.
My Dataview Use Cases in Obsidian
One of my favorite things about Micro.blog and the IndyWeb in general is the international flavor. Putting the World in the WWW - for WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Omnivore - a free, open source read-it-later universal app that supports highlights and notes, has RSS and newsletter subscriptions, and imports into Obsidian, Logseq and Notion.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Daniel was a Civil War re-enactor for the winning (Union) side at the Battle of Ft. Fisher near Wilmington, NC.
If you set www.google.com/search%s&udm=14 as your default search engine in your browser, you can use Google minus the ads, sponsored content and fluff. Details
Reminiscing about The Great Satanic Scare of the 80s, when everything from the rock group KISS to the kid’s TV show The Smurfs was supposedly under the control of the Dark lord.
Today on AppAddict - Bebop Quick Notes is a new app designed for the quick capture of text notes. Its killer feature is the ability to save notes in Markdown format directly into an Obsidian vault, but it can save in other formats to other locations, like Dropbox, too.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Rusty was at the West Columbia Riverwalk Park in Columbia, SC walking his dog when I asked if I could get his picture. Despite his punk rock appearance, he was a seemingly shy, soft-spoken man with a very friendly labrador for a companion.
Charles Babbage’s Analytic Engine was never fully designed because he had to keep tinkering with the Difference Engine (a more limited version) which he could never finish (nowadays several computer history museums have working models from his original specs) because the printer would never work properly. We commemorate this early milestone in computing today by having our printers never work also.
Small Robot Army
My obsessive pursuit of 10,000 cycling miles in a calendar year, what it took and what it cost - The 10,000th Mile for WeblogPoMo2024
Today on AppAddict - Two recommendations for File Sync Utilities Free File Sync and Sync Folders Pro. They’ll meet all your needs including scheduled syncs and full disk bootable clones.
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From my 100 Strangers Project - DJ was fishing off the pier at Sunset Beach in Brunswick County, NC during the annual blue fish run when I interrupted him long enough to take this portrait.
Just a slice of life, a road trip with Wonder Woman. My WeblogPoMo2024 post for Saturday.
This Week's Bookmarks - Your musical taste, Habits, Reverse Dictionary, Floppy Disks, Random entertainment, No car vacations, Subplots cut from movies

How alternative is your music taste? Find out with this tool. Obscurify Music
30 Small Habits To Lead A More Peaceful Life (lifehack.org)
Reverse Dictionary – Find words that fit your description (virock.org)
Obsolete, but not gone: The people who won’t give up floppy disks (bbc.com)
Project Random (0xbeef.co.uk) - See a random video, listen to a random song, play a random game
10 places where you can ditch your car this summer (nationalgeographic.com)
Saturday and time for an update to my /now page, featuring a great novel/audiobook, three TV shows, links to 16 blog posts, the best work pants and the crazy websites I added to my personal bookmarks this week. Enjoy!
Today on AppAddict - Velja Browser Picker - a free and open-source app that opens URLS in the correct app (Discord, App Store Teams, Zoom etc.) or in the browser of your choice. Easy to configure and use.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Meg was sitting at a table on the sidewalk outside a bar, doing a little day drinking and having a smoke on a crisp December afternoon. Her comment when I explained my project - “How fun!”. And, she said it with a big smile. I love the reflection in the window.
What's Your Browser Setup? Hundreds of Tabs? Multiple Windows? Something in Between?

Recently, I posted on Mastodon, “I do not understand the 100+ tabs open at the time people. Not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t get it. Did you get attacked by a bookmarks.html file as a young child? Is yours the laptop with a petabyte of RAM? What gives?” Surprisingly, I got a lot of feedback from had been no more than a wisecrack. I’m interested in the way people do everything on their computers, from what apps they use, to, yes, how many tabs they work with. Please reach out and describe your browser setup if you’re up to it.
At work, I normally have two or three windows open in Edge, my browser of choice (because it really doesn’t suck). At home, I only run two windows.
Work Setup
Edge has both profiles and workspaces. Profiles have separate settings, bookmarks and extensions. Workspaces have separate bookmarks bars and tabs. At work, I sign into a separate profile to access my university Microsoft 365 account. Group policies don’t allow the installation of any extensions, so it’s pretty bare bones. I normally have the following tabs open:
- Company directory
- Outlook email
- Microsoft Admin Center (plus a tab each for Entra, Defender, Intune)
- Asset management app
- CBT Nuggets (for training)
- Student Database
- Six different Excel spreadsheets from Office 365 online
Total work tabs = 15
Personal Setup
At work, I also run a window logged in to my personal profile with at least one of my personal workspaces. I do this to have access to extensions (like my password manager) and bookmarks. I have two personal workspaces: one for social media and blogging and another general workspace.
My social and blogging workspace has tabs open for:
- Lou Plummer (@amerpie@social.lol) - social.lol - my primary Mastodon account
- Lou Plummer (@amerpie@onephoto.club) - One Photo Club - a second Mastodon account for travel photos
- Lou Plummer (@amerpie.lol) — Bluesky (bsky.app)
- Lou Plummer (@CycleLou) / X
- Pxlmo
- Lou Plummer | LinkedIn
- Lou Plummer (@amerpie) on Farcaster (warpcast.com)
- Lou Plummer — Refrakt
- Micro.blog
- Sites | tinylytics
- Explore Posts | Scribbles.
- OMG.LOL
Total social and blogging tags = 13
My general browsing workspace has tabs for:
- Gmail (personal email)
- Yahoo mail (used only for newsletters)
- Google Drive
- Raindrop.io bookmarks
- Gemini (google.com)
- Reddit - Dive into anything
- Plus whatever I happen to be interested in at any given moment, usually about a half-dozen tabs
Total general browsing tabs = 12
Total Tabs = 40
Other Considerations
I use the great Mac app, Velja, to let me pick what browser or app opens links. I have five browsers installed, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Orion and Arc. I prefer to open YouTube links in Freetube. And though I usually use the default web interface for Mastodon, I also use Ivory for its notification center actions. Inoreader is my RSS provider and I use an Edge PWA to access my feed.
I wrote an old fashioned #FollowFriday post but I gave some reasons why these 10 people from Mastodon are worthy of being added to your list. The Fediverse has been such a positive experience!
Today on AppAddict - Zavala, a free, open source, minimalist outliner with iCloud syncing. It’s a universal app for Mac, iPhone and iPad with some features (like font selection) that even the big boys lack.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I met Shawn and Erica at a demonstration jump by the Army’s Golden Knights parachute team who are stationed at Ft. Liberty adjacent to the town where we live. Erica was happy to pose for me. Shawn was a little reticent and reserved, but a good sport, nonetheless.
BREAKING: Gov Abbot pardons Daniel Perry despite Perry’s plan to kill Muslims & Black people—then succeeding in killing a BLM protestor (who was a Veteran). “All lives matter” crowd proudly celebrates killing Muslims & Black people.
A reminder once more that a system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.
Qasim Rashid
The phones of normal people do not look like your phone and the needs of normal people do not match the wants of the content generation conglomerate. The masses aren’t outraged, and they really don’t want things to change. For WeblogPoMo2024
From my 100 Strangers Project - Stone (his name) manages this tattoo business. A few days after I shot this, I saw him again and we had a conversation. Turns out he is a photographer too. We talked about it for a while. He looked me up on Facebook and we’ve now been friends for 10 years.
Today on AppAddict - MarsEdit which makes writing and publishing to Micro.blog and other platforms a breeze. Not a subscription, thankfully, and also available on Setapp. @danielpunkass
If Apple makes macOS for the iPad, how will the bleeding Edge 1% crowd show us how to “really be productive” with our tablets? When my school district bought an iPad Pro for every HS teacher, they all started using Chromebooks to get work done. Normies don’t want what the 1% wants - ever.
I just found out that as a member of my favorite community of software junkies, AppRaven, I have the ability to create web pages with collections from the app store. Here’s the first one - Mac Apps I Own and Recommend
The story of the biggest prison escape I ever worked on, the day three prisoners went through a fence while under fire and I had to go after them in the woods with the bloodhound handler. Also known as one of the reasons why I switched careers.
Today on AppAddict - CleanShot X hits the sweet spot for price and features among the many screen shot utilities for macOS, including several new features just released in version 4.7. Thanks to @mattbirchler for his video yesterday introducing them.
From my 100 Strangers Project - I met Jenny at a craft fair, where she was smoking this big old stogie and composing poetry on a cloudy spring Sunday. How could I not get a picture of that?
Did you ever get in trouble in school for reading? I did…frequently. I got negative comments on my report cards for “placing pleasure reading above everything else”. Thankfully, I matured and never lost a job because of an errant paperback. WeblogPoMo2024 My Life Reading
I write about how [Biden] is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both parties shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. I write about how that liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the image of the cowboy—who wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against “creeping socialism” that stole from hardworking white men in order to give handouts to lazy minorities and women. Heather Cox Richardson
I’ve been maintaining a links blog since January. I use Raindrop.io’s embedded frames feature to share a collection which makes updating the page a breeze. I make it a habit to add a link a day, adding a little purpose to otherwise aimless web surfing.
Today an AppAddict - Maestral, a free, open-source Dropbox client that lets you keep your files whereever you want, allows selective sync and doesn’t count against your three device limit. Works with paid and free Dropbox accounts.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Eric and his partner were waiting for breakfast outside a busy diner when I approached them. He seemed kind of grumpy and I didn’t think I was going to get this one, but she told him it was OK, so in the end I got my man.
Just read my first story about the cool stuff they get in the EU that the rest of the world does without and now I have a little bit of an attitude. I want a real iOS clipboard manager too dammit.
CLICK ON START. START. ITS ON THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER. ON YOUR MONITOR. START. CLICK IT. GO TO CONTROL PANEL. CONTROL PANEL. ITS IN THE START MENU. THE START MENU. ITS WHAT POPPED UP WHEN YOU HIT START. NO, DON’T HIT START AGAIN. OK, HIT START AGAIN. DID THE START MENU POP UP? THEN CLICK START. NOW GO TO CONTROL PANEL. CONTROL PANEL. CLICK ON IT. CLICK ON CONTROL PANEL. THAT START MENU DISAPPEARED? CLICK ON START. OK, I’LL BE OVER.
If you only know how many times I have had this conversation in the last 30 years.
15 Example #Obsidian Vaults from Around the Internet
I’ve been collecting these for a while and sharing them out of my Google Drive but it would probably be better for you to see the original source so you can discover some of these resources on your own.
- Dataview Example Vault: A example vault to collect and showcase various dataview queries. Created on behalf of AB1908 (github.com)
- Personal-Wiki: A showcase to help others to organize their notes. (github.com)
- LifeOS for Obsidian (obsidian-life-os.netlify.app)
- Grow Your Mind Garden Starter Kit
- LeanProductivity Starter Vault (sascha-kasper.com)
- Kepano: My personal Obsidian vault template. A bottom-up approach to note-taking and organizing things I am interested in. (github.com)
- Dashboard++ - TfT Hacker
- Bullet Journal and Task Management in Obsidian - Free Vault for download and Folder Structure (travelertechie.com)
- Obsidian Hub Main
- Ideaverse for Obsidian (linkingyourthinking.com)
- Obsidian: Sample Planner Vault from Ellane (gumroad.com)
- PARA Starter Kit - Obsidian Hub - Obsidian Publish
- Obsidian Starter Vault – The Sweet Setup
- ObsidianMD CSS Snippets repository, a collection of CSS code snippets to enhance the user interface elements of ObsidianMD (github.com)
- Starter Vault – Obsidian University
My favorite part of working in education is summer break. Sure, there are plenty of projects of high and low intensity, but there’s something super peaceful about a nearly empty campus.
My WeblogPoMo2024 entry for today - On Writing - we all have a “why” to explain our need/desire/want to put ourselves out there for the Internet world to see. This is mine.
Today on AppAddict - Dropzone 4 a pricey but versatile menu bar app (included with Setapp) that can make uploading media to Micro.blog a snap if you pair it with shortcuts from @jarrod
From my 100 Strangers Project - Office Scott. I couldn’t tell if she was flattered or embarrassed, but she was cool with having me snap a photo. I take picture of police officers because it’s good for them to get used to it. I’m not pushy or confrontational about it and most of them don’t mind.
Task Management with Things 3 and #Obsidian
Many people choose to do their task management in Obsidian exclusively using different plugins and workflows. The tasks plugin is #5 in downloads at 1.2 million. As much as I love and use Obsidian, I don’t consider it an everything program. Task management applications like Things 3 from Cultured Code are popular for a reason. Their superior design, shortcut integration and feature set are all ready as soon as you install the app with no fiddling involved.
Things 3 offers projects, areas, repeating tasks, different start and due dates and imports from Apple shortcuts as well as Siri integration and a robust collection of shortcuts. There is a great Raycast extension for it too. There is an active community on Reddit.
I use two plugins to integrate Things with Obsidian.
Things 3 Today Sync

Things 3 Today Sync puts a copy of my today view (the tasks with a due date of today)
in the right sidebar of the Obsidian interface. The tasks come in as hyperlinks, so that clicking on them will take me to the task in Things. Checking the checkbox beside the task closes it and removes it from the list. If I add a task in things on the fly, it also appears in Obsidian. It’s a Mac only plugin, so If you are on a PC, you won’t be able to use it even if you have Things installed on your phone or an a Mac somewhere else. It’s dead simple to set up, requiring no complex configuration. Just enable it after installation.
Things 3 Logbook

Things Logbook will periodically sync your completed tasks with your daily note. You can assign a hotkey and sync on demand if you want to. One feature I really liked was the retroactive syncing. I have been using Things much longer than Obsidian and when I ran the sync for the for first time, it created daily notes stretching back years with my completed tasks which has really proved useful since I can now search of those items with Obsidian. Completed tasks show up in your daily note as hyperlinks and if you are on a Mac, they will open Things to your logbook. This plugin works on Windows machines so that if you check off completed tasks on your phone or on a Mac, they will appear in your daily note on Windows.
Things Sync
Things Sync is a third plugin for Things and Obsidian. I don’t use it because I’ve never found a way to fit it into my workflow, but it allows you to create tasks in Obsidian that get synced with Things.
Any more extroverts married to introverts out there? Things my wife hates worse than death - 1) Going into a store to pay for gas in person 2) Someone sitting beside her at the movies 3) Invitations to anything but particularly from neighbors
Today on AppAddict - Bean a free lightweight word processor that’s kind of like WordPad on Windows, only better. Weighing in at only 8MB, it runs great, even on old hardware. For when you need rich text, tables and images in a document.
I reflect on Reddit after using it since 2006, the ups and downs and how it has changed for my WeblogPoMo2024 post today.
100 Strangers Project - This lovely lady sold newspapers on an off ramp near my house for years in all kinds of weather, always smiling. I bought from her whenever I had cash.
Jump starting Mother’s Day in the US. My mom lived the first 17 years of her life in a rural NC farmhouse with no indoor plumbing. She had two kids before age 20 and a couple of disastrous marriages. She ended up a highly regarded RN in the ICU and in her 70s has walked across England and Spain.
This Weeks Bookmarks - Paleo is BS, Bye Harry Potter, Tech failures that didn't, Best books of the century, Travel destinations, Phones at protests, Clipboard managers

Hahaha, all those gym bros have been eating an artificial man made caveman wannabe diet Stone Age Paleo diet was not rich in meat, scientists say | CNN
How Daniel Radcliffe Outran Harry Potter - The Atlantic - Remember to use archive.io to read paywalled articles
Remember all the people who though the iPhone was going to fail? These Tech Products Notoriously Got Wrecked by First Reviews (gizmodo.com)
I’ve got a prize for the first person to finish the whole list. The Top Books to Read From 2000-2023 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
I love to dream of traveling almost as much as I love traveling. - The 24 Best Places to Go in 2024
Practical advice for those going into the front lines of modern protests - How Do I Prepare My Phone for a Protest? (Updated 2024) – The Markup
For Mac users, a long Reddit thread on what a clipboard manager is and all the many choices you can look at before choosing Raycast - Battle of the Clipboard Managers : r/macapps (reddit.com)
It’s Saturday and I’ve updated my /now page with links to a full week or app reviews on AppAddict and my WeblogPoMo2024 posts, as well good TV from the BBC, my browsing finds and a new coffee maker for the masses.
Today on AppAddict - FreeTube may be the most underrated app in the Mac ecosystem. It’s a privacy first, ad free player for YouTube that offers playlists, favorites and subscriptions - all without an account. It even downloads videos. Totally free and open source.
From my 100 Strangers Project - Jessica - a member of an anarchist pacifist theater group dating back to 1947. I saw them rehearsing in a park in NYC and struck up a conversation. The didn’t just talk at me though, truly curious they asked about my project and my own artistic history.
All roads lead back to Vietnam, the story of relationship with my distant father today for WeblogPoMo2024.
My Favorite Actions for Hazel, the Preeminent File Management Software for the Mac
Hazel, by Noodlesoft Software is a Mac utility for automating file management. You select a folder and provide criteria about what you want to happen to the files and folders in that folder and Hazel periodically checks it and runs the rules. Hazel can move, copy, rename and convert files. Criteria you can use include all of a file’s native attributes and even file contents. A lot of folks use it to scan PDFs of their bills for a specific account number and automatically move the file to a folder in their paperless record management system.
These are my favorite Hazel Actions
- Unzip any compressed files in my Downloads folder and trash the zip file - This helps keep my downloads folder cleared of the detritus that occurs because I am a compulsive software addict.
- Install apps inside DMGs in my downloads folder via RapiDMG and then trash the DMG - When I download a disk image file with an app in it, I don’t have to do anything else to get the app moved to my Applications folder. It happens in seconds with no intervention from me unless I have to approve replacing an existing file.
- Import any image file I place in an Images folder into the Photos app (in the background) - I’m constantly copying photos from Facebook and various web sites. I have them to a folder I have designated in Hazel and they automatically get imported into my photos library with me even opening the app.
- Change any text file in my Dropbox to a markdown file and move it to my Obsidian vault (useful in sending emails to Obsidian) - I use an IFTTT applet that allows me to forward emails to a specific address. Those emails are save in a specific folder in my Dropbox account that Hazel watches. When a file appears there, Hazel changes the file extension from txt to md and moves the resulting file into my Obsidian vault.

- Sort all files in my documents folder into subfolders based on file extension. - I currently have 42 sub-folders in my documents folder of different file types ranging from the usual suspects like txt and docx to the more esoteric like saved HoudahSpot searched and Etrecheck Reports.
- Purge old screenshots - between my day job and my blogging past time, I generate a lot of screenshots. Hazel moves any screenshots more than three days old into an archive folder to help give a semblance of order.
- Color code any application I haven’t opened in three months - I have 416 apps installed on my mac because, well, I just can’t help myself. Hazel will color an unused app red after not launching it for 90 days to help me decide whether to keep it or remove it with AppCleaner.
- Keep my desktop clean - I do not like to use my desktop as part of my file system. I rarely even see it since I run apps maximized most of the time. This rule moves any file that ends up on my desktop into a folder in my home directory. I exclude aliases from the rule because there are times when I want to make an app shortcut on the desktop, usually temporarily.
From my 100 Strangers Project - This guy wanted to remain anonymous. I met him on the street in Charlotte where he was busy selling tickets before a Panthers football game, but not too busy to pose for a quick street portrait.
Today on AppAddict - Music Harbor helps you stay on top of new releases and videos from the artists you listen to. It’s so good it told me about the new Johnny Cash album and The Man in Black has been gone for more than 20 years.
My first computer was an IBM 486/33 SX PS1 Consultant, purchased in December of 1993 for $1800 but there is more to the story than just numbers. For WeblogPoMo2024


8 Use cases for Drafts - The First Automation App I Ever Installed, Still on my Dock 10 Years Later
Drafts was the first app I installed when I became interested in iOS and Mac automation. The power users of the world explained it to me as the universal quick capture app for my phone. I was advised to always enter text into Drafts no matter where I eventually wanted it to end up. I dutifully put it into my dock and it’s been there ever since. In this post I’m going to go over eight different ways I use Drafts. It’s important to note that it pays off to give it a prominent place in your iOS sharing setting for ease of use. On macOS it should show up in the share settings by default.
1. Copy to Obsidian Inbox
I am all in on Obsidian the massively popular note’s app with a robust 1600+ plugin architecture. It does a lot of things amazing well but mobile quick capture is not one of them. To solve that, I use [this Drafts action](Send to Obsidian | Drafts Directory (getdrafts.com)) which saves the text to the default save location in my vault and uses the first line of the text as the note title/file name. I use a couple of other Drafts to Obsidian actions including Add to Obsidian Daily Note and Add to Daily Note Plus which add text to my daily note in different ways using a time stamp and a geolocation.
2. The Things 3, Fantastical, Day One Combo
The Quick Journaling Action Group lets me keep one running note that I can process at day’s end to send the individual lines as entries into Fantastical, Things 3 and Day One.
- Lines starting with “-“ are collected and sent to Day One as a journal entry
- Lines starting with “⁎” are sent to Things inbox
- Lines starting with “@“ are sent to Fantastical
3. Things Parser
Using Task Paper syntax I can create a note in Drafts complete with due dates, areas, projects and tags that get correctly imported into the Things 3 task manager using the Things Parser. I use this with a Drafts template to create daily and weekly checklists for reoccurring tasks. I also use the action group, Things for Things which includes actions for:
- Inbox
- Today
- This Evening
- Tomorrow
- Pick date
- Work
- House
- Personal
- Pick a Project
- Make a Project
- Selection to things
- Bunch of todos
- Process notes from
- Prompt for new task
4. Mail to Evernote
Yep, I still use Evernote for some tasks. Old habits die hard. Evernote eliminated AppleScript a while back and their API has become more and more problematic , but one feature they still support and that works equally well on iOS and macOS is the mail to Evernote feature and this Drafts action accomplishes that without you ever having to use your mail client.
5. Micro.blogging
This blog is hosted by Micro.blog and I can create entries in Drafts and have them posted online by running an action. I use the action Post to Micro.blog with Title by the great blogger Matt Birchler.
6. OMG.LOL Status
I am a big fan of the almost indescribable web community at OMG.LOL. One of the fun features there is a status board you can share with other members, post on your website and cross-post to Mastodon (where all the cool kids hang out). The OMG.LOL Status action does it all.
7. Run Shortcut to Save to Thoughts Inspiration Manager
One of my favorite things to do online is to collect quotes from various sources, I save my quotes in an app called Thoughts Inspiration Manager. I don’t have a Drafts action to write directly to Thoughts but it doesn’t matter because I have a Shortcut that does. I just need to run the Drafts shortcut action explained in the user guide.
8. Personal Assistant
Drafts can serve as an interface with OpenAI by using the Personal Assistant action. (using your own API key) It’s a helpful action to run when you know you are going to use the AI generated text in another app. This action allows the user to get an AI-assisted response to a prompt:
- The user is prompted to enter input, which can be pasted from the clipboard or manually entered.
- The input is then sent to the OpenAI API, and the response is inserted into the current draft 3 lines after the cursor.
- If there is no selected text in the draft, the user is asked if they would like to use text from the clipboard. If the prompt is canceled or the input is empty, the action cancels.
- If there is no response from the API, the output is set to “No reply received.”
From my 100 Strangers Project - Miranda, a real-life Roller Derby Queen. I thought Roller Derby died in the 70s and she told me that it had in fact done so but the 21st century has seen a revival. Miranda was a slight, if athletic woman with a definite energetic presence and a sense of enthusiasm.
Nothing too sexy about it, just a day in the life of Mr. and Mrs. Amerpie for WeblogPoMo2024.
Today on AppAddict - RapiDMG - a $1 App that automates mounting DMG files, extracting the app to the Applications folder, dismounting and deleting the DMG and highlighting the newly installed app. It happens in seconds.
For purely practical and non-sentimental reasons, I still have the current version of the very first iPhone app I ever downloaded on my phone fifteen years later. I wrote the developers today to let them know that and was tickled pink when they wrote back. AppBoxPro
Question for people who have switched email accounts after a long time with one service - I’ve had the same Gmail account since 2005 but I’m thinking of switching to Proton or Hey! What were your biggest pain points?
I’m always on the lookout for a good police procedural from the folks across the pond. They’ve got that genre down. Right now, we’re loving Blue Lights about three probationary constables on the Belfast, NI force.
Another sticker for @maique - The building this is stuck too belongs to American photographer Jay Maisel in NYC and it serves as an impromptu art gallery in the neighborhood.
The Road to Hell - a book review. I stayed up all night on the day I checked this out of the library to finish it. It hit very close to home. WeblogPoMo2024, Day 8
Today on App Addict - Blip - Free, encrypted, cross platform, instant file transfers of unlimited size
There are 600,000 children in Rafah. They have nowhere else to go. If you support an invasion of Rafah, you’re saying the lives and well-being of those children don’t matter. If you saw those children as your own, opposing the invasion wouldn’t be a question. If you don’t see them as your own, it’s because they’ve been dehumanized to you. Otherwise no person with a conscience would look at an innocent child, let alone 600,000 innocent children, and agree they deserve to be bombed and killed.
#Obsidian Maintenance - The Steps to Take and Plugins to Use to Keep Your Vault Up to Date, Backed Up and Organized

Depending on how you use Obsidian, your maintenance tasks may vary, but these are some good general tips. Set these as recurring tasks in your task manager of choice and keep your setup in good shape all the time.
1. Update your plugins
Click on the settings “Gear” icon > Community Plugins > Check for updates button. I also suggest using the community plugin Plugin Update Tracker. You’ll need to do this on every device where you use Obsidian.
2 Update your themes
Click on the settings “Gear” icon > Appearance > Current Community Themes > Check for Updates. Again, you’ll need to do this on every device where you use Obsidian.
3 Organize your folders and notes
If you use a folder system in your vault, you should periodically do some basic file maintenance. I have a couple of folders that serve as Inboxes for me. One is where the mail I forward ends up (How to forward email to your Obsidian vault) and the other is for clipped web pages and the default location where new notes go. I regularly go through those folders and move the notes in them to their permanent home. You can automate part of this process with the Auto Note Mover community plugin. which will relocate notes based on tags. If you use a calendar based scheme for your periodic notes or read it later imports, go ahead and move notes to the appropriate folders during this step.
4. Clean up your tags
One tip I give to anyone getting started with Obsidian is that if you are going to use tags, start using them from the very beginning. My starter vault contained a couple thousand notes I bought over from Evernote and thankfully they were all tagged. I suggest using the Tag Folder community plugin, because one of the things it does is show you all the notes you have without tags. Tag Wrangler is also good to have because it lets you edit and delete tags in bulk. If you need to add the same tags to multiple notes at one, use the Multi Properties plugin.
5. Download and organize attachments
I prefer to download the images in web pages I clip into my vault and I like to keep those images named according to the note they are in. I also like to have a central attachment repository. The two plugins I use for this are Local Images Plus and Attachment Management. I cover the whole workflow in this blog post.
6. Check your backups
There are several ways to back up your Obsidian vault - folder syncing to a secondary location on your hard drive to upload to a cloud service, GitHub or as part of a whole drive backup like Time Machine on a Mac. Regardless of the method you choose, you should check periodically to make sure all your files are getting added.
When the NY Times, WaPo and Pro Publica all win Pulitzers (again) and National Review, Washington Times and The Federalist all go zero for forever, it makes me think that maybe public service and good journalism aren’t so much liberal as they are truthful compared to the morass on the right.
“I’ve been an artist myself. Anything I can do to promote art, I will. Art says things about its creator, whether it is good or bad.” - Robert
100 Strangers - Robert is an artist & philosopher. I saw him sitting on a bench, legs crossed beneath him on the periphery of Central Park reading a book he’d just purchased from one of the stalls along the street. He wore a quirky pair of glasses that drew my attention. His reaction to my portrait request was a huge smile and 100% cooperation. I knelt on the sidewalk and gladly listened to his thoughts on art for several minutes.
In today’s WeblogPoMo2024 entry, I wrote about five times I’ve taken the streets with like-minded comrades over, well, things that people ought to be in the streets about.
Today on App Addict - ProNote - a plugin for Apple’s Notes App that allows you to use Markdown, a formatting toolbar or slash commands. It also features a backlinks highlighter.
I saw @superdavey talking about his perfect album earlier. Here’s mine. I remember the night I bought it at the record store, lying on the floor beside the speakers, the way we did back when music was so god damned important in our lives. I miss those days. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen
I found out last week that you can download your Apple purchase history. The first app I ever purchased was on 9/18/2009, AppBoxPro and it is still available! The second app I downloaded was Facebook. It was a more innocent time, what can I say?
A street portrait from my 100 Strangers Project. This is Joey, an aspiring actor I met at a street festival. He was an agreeable model and we had a nice chat after I took his photo.
Northern Ireland is like no other place in the English-Speaking World. It’s a beautiful country full of people friendly to outsiders and still suspicious about each other, twenty-six years after the end of The Troubles. What do you know about it? WeblogPoMo2024, Day 6
Today on AppAddict - The Battle of the Clipboard Mangers - I settled on using Raycast with the CopyQ extension installed after being a PastePal user for years. I still have access to Keyboard Maestro and Better Touch Tool’s clipboards, but I tried and rejected numerous others.
Trying to crowdsource a good place to mail order Nespresso pods. Do any of you people with “Coffee” in your bio have any tips?
I’ve already said that we’re not banning books to keep kids safe, we’re banning books to keep afloat a view of the world that seemed to be dying.
Source: On Banning Books, Taking Notes for Others and Should you Write a Book? – 3 Threads – Curtis McHale by
From My 100 Strangers series of street portraits - When I told her that she had a beautiful smile, she thanked me. I meant it.
I know that VS Code is the most popular editor and has approximately 1 million features and plugins but I’ve never cared for its non-standard interface. As a power user, but non-programmer, I like the free version of BBEdit. Global search and replace is a killer feature. It can also open anything.
One Man’s Obsession is Another Man’s Passion - a multi-generational tale of compulsive lawn mowing, incinerated rifles, talking birds and art galleries.
I subscribe to lots of newsletters, including some commercial ones like Lifehacker and Tech Republic. I’m pretty good at staying on top of them usually but I’m here to publicly confess that I had to commit inbox suicide today and just “select all + mark as read”. It offends my completionist ethos.
This Week's Bookmarks - Mostly Music and Photographs, Defending tech from overanxious parents, lessons for writers
![[David Byrnes in the white suit he wore for Stop Making Sense singing into a microphone]](https://amerpie.lol/uploads/2024/david-byrne-heads.jpeg)
♪ David Byrne | Radio | David Byrne Presents: The Power of Song to Give Voice is Eternal
♪ The Nostalgia Machine - Find the Top Hits From Any Year
📷 Earth Day 2024: Witness our changing planet in 12 incredible satellite images | Space
♪ When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis
🖥️ Struggling with a Moral Panic Once Again - The Unfortunate Technology Blame Game
📷 Explore NASA’s Best Photos of the Year (gizmodo.com)
📚 David Mamet’s Brilliant Memo for Writer
📚 9 Memorable Lessons from David Mamet’s Writing Staff Memo - ScreenCraft
However big you think UnitedHealth is, it’s bigger than that:
- With a market cap of nearly $450 billion, it’s the fourth-largest company in the US by revenue this year, beating out Alphabet and Microsoft.
- The company is eyeing a $24.7 billion profit in 2024.
- One analyst estimated that more than 5% of US GDP flows through UnitedHealth’s systems daily.
Yay, capitalism.
It’s Saturday again, so I have updated my /now page where I talk about WeblogPoMo2024, some good TV, links to the 19 (!) blog posts I wrote this week and one of my favorite subscriptions, Trakt.
The battery on my M2 MacBook Air lasts so long it seems like it’s from a science fiction novel. To maximize the lifetime of the battery and to protect the environment and my wallet, I use AlDente Pro to keep my charge below 80% and to automatically run a full cycle once a month.
Everyone has their favorite moments, their favorite memories. These are mine. None of them are particularly monumental and thankfully some of them are downright commonplace. Lucky me.
Hiking in New Hampshire is scary at times. There’s a weather station on top of Mt. Washington where there’s a plaque to all the people who have died on the mountain. The scary part? They left room on the bottom of the plaque to add more names!
Free and Cheap Web Tools For Bloggers: Graphics, Design Tools, Editors, Analytics and More
Who doesn’t like free stuff? As horrible as the web is supposed to be these days, you can still find an amazing variety of tools to help you accomplish a bunch of different things. Since I started blogging a few months ago, I’ve discovered or been turned on to several useful online services that I use to compose, illustrate and publish on the web.
Picyard

Picyard is a free online tool that allows you to create images for social media, blog posts, presentations, and more. You can use Picyard to create images, testimonials, code snippets, QR codes and then download them as png or jpeg files.
Simple Page Builder

Simple Page Builderwill do everything you need to design a web page, up to and including helping you register for one the free hosting sites Glitch or Neocities. It explains design principals, basic coding and file management.
Hemingway Editor

The Hemingway Editor cuts the dead weight from your writing. It highlights wordy sentences in yellow and more egregious ones in red. Hemingway helps you write with power and clarity by highlighting adverbs, passive voice, and dull, complicated words. It even shows you the reading level required to understand your writing style.
Tinylytics

Tinylytics is an analytics tool for small websites. It’s designed to be simple to use and self explanatory. There is documentation on the site covering:
- Embedding the script
- Showing a hit counter
- Showing kudos
- Showing uptime
- Showing the webring
- Showing countries
- Ignoring your own hits
Canva Color Wheel

If you are advanced enough to write your own CSS, you will probably need a color reference from time to time. The Canva Color Wheel provides not only colors for your code, it also advises you on what colors work well together. I’ve even used it to help with the settings in Obsidian.
Unsplash

Unsplash is my go to web site for royalty-free stock photography. There is no need to steal graphics from Google when so much is available for free from Unsplash. The images are easy to download and they have a huge assortment for you to search by keyword.
Lex

Lex is your AI editor for Google Docs. Not only does it check your spelling and grammar, Lex also brainstorms ideas, helps to come up with titles and will do rewrites of your work in a different style. It features versioning if you need to save what you’ve already written while contemplating the edited version. Like anywhere on Google Docs, you can work with collaborators without them needing to download an app.
Free online service upscales images for you
NYC Fun Facts
- There is no place to pee. I think you have to go to New Jersey.
- Those 4-year olds on their scooters will run you over and laugh.
- So many dogs!
- The police all sleep in their uniforms. Someone give those people an iron.
- There really are a lot of Chinese people in Chinatown. They don’t just call it that.
Inspired by @maique, a sticker spotted on a building in the Bowery, NYC
A story from thirty years ago when I was trying to figure out how to keep three adolescents fed without going bankrupt. For WeblogPoMo20224 - Feeding Children
Today on AppAddict - Forget all the fancy apps, Raycast, the Google Gemini website, all the AI stuff on SetApp, because my favorite way to conduct a Q&A with a LLM is using this free Apple Shortcut that has a customizable prompt, transcripts and more.
Automating #Obsidian - Generate Notes About Your Media Consumption via RSS - Books, TV, Movies, Music

Automation
How would you like to have notes automatically created for you in Obsidian to keep track of your media consumption? You could then add your own thoughts, reviews or any other information you wanted to the note. Many apps and services you may already be using generate RSS feeds when you use them to record your habits. Among these are Trakt for television shows, Letterboxd for movies,Last.fm for music and Goodreads for books. There is no need for an intermediate service like IFTTT or Zapier and you don’t even need a subscription to an RSS provider like Feedly.
Just One Plugin
You just need to install the community plugin RSS Copyist and follow the directions to set it up. Basically you create a folder called RSS at the root of your vault with subfolders for each feed you want to follow. Using the provided template, you create a note for each feed that specifies the URL, default tags and other configurable information. The template even contains a prewritten Dataview query to create a MOC for you, complete with images.
There are two other community plugins for RSS. You can experiment with these and see if you prefer them.
📷 #mbApr Bonus Day 32 - Unputdownable My granddaughter, Jolene, named after the Dolly Parton song (note: I eventually did, in fact, put her down. She is a teenager now.)
I feel like it would be a good idea to budget some time each week just for the forums I belong to for different software titles and web sites: Drafts, #Obsidian, Actions for Obsidian, OMG.LOL, the Automators Podcast, Tidbits, AppleInsider, Keyboard Maestro and Hazel. Good stuff to be learned there.
My Top 10 Keyboard Maestro Macros

Keyboard Maestro by Stairways Software is the preeminent automation application for macOS. It acts on nearly 30 triggers to perform almost any Mac function you can think of. It can launch tasks, control applications and manipulate text and images. It’s easier to demonstrate its powers than to explain them, so I’ll share my top 10 macros.
1. Add Today’s Task
This is an example of a macro that runs an iOS shortcut, in this case one that adds my most important task of the day to my Obsidian daily note. I launch it with a keyboard shortcut.
2. Sync Obsidian Vault
This macro uses a time of day trigger to launch Sync Folders Pro every morning at 2am. That application then runs an automated sync of my Obsidian vault to my Google Drive folder where it gets uploaded automatically into the cloud. Keyboard Maestro shuts the program down five minutes later.
3. Create Daily Checklist in Drafts and Copy to Things 3
Every evening I trigger a macro from my menubar to use a template in Drafts to create my daily checklist in Things 3, complete with the due date, tags and areas. Mike Burke wrote a great piece on how to create the template for Things in Drafts.
4. Eject Backup
My daily driver at home is a M2 MacBook Air. Every night before I go to ned, I plug in a backup drive so that Time Machine can do its thing while I sleep. Every morning, 30 minutes before my alarm goes off, a time of day trigger causes a macro to execute that runs an AppleScript to eject the drive, so that when I start work in the morning, all I have to do is physically disconnect it.
5. Morning Apps
Every morning, right before I wake up, Keyboard Maestro launches my browser, Obsidian, Fantastical and the Photos app. That way I’m ready to start my daily note, keep up with my appointments and post a picture to Pixelfed, a daily habit.
6. Various App Launching Hotkeys
I use a hyperkey (CAPS LOCK) mapped as shift+control+option+command with Karabiner-Elements in combination with a hotkey to launch a variety of my most used apps, Edge, Drafts, Things, Bartender, Path Finder etc. All of that runs through small Keyboard Maestro macros.
7. Quit All Applications
At the end of a work session on my computer, I hit control+shift+Q and it quits all my open apps. That way everything can back up properly and I don’t have to worry about open files.
8. Uninstall Apps
When I launch App Cleaner, it serves as a macro that arranges the windows on my computer automatically so that App cleaner takes up the right of the display and Path Finder, opened to the Applications folder, takes up the left half. Then it’s just a matter of dragging over the app I want to remove.
9. Hide on Unlock
For privacy reasons, unlocking my computer triggers an Apple Script that hides all open applications. That way I don’t have to remember what’s on my screen nor do I have to worry about any prying eyes from nosy neighbors.
10. Window Management
I have mapped control-shift and the arrow keys to control window positions for top, bottom, left and right. I get more granular control using Raycast but for most cases Keyboard Maestro does just fine.
Today on AppAddict - a bargain if you can find it on sale, Alarm Clock Pro has multiple alarms, world clocks, timers, stopwatches, and automates emails, texts, program launches, web pages, sleep, wake, restart and shutdown. See the full review
I decided to start off my participation in WeblogPoMo2024 with a bit of humor, so I wrote A Treatise on Office Decorations. If you are a golfer and sensitive about it, you may want to skip this one. Same for hangers of cheesy posters.
“The University administration respects all student protests, just not this one. Students have fought for many important causes over the years, and their right to protest is sacrosanct. In this case, however, we must arrest and slander them. Free speech is the backbone of a vibrant academic ecosystem. Just this once, though, we must silence and punish any student who speaks out.”
I made a multi-reddit to browse tech topics from 28 different communities. Lately it’s been almost unusable because almost 75% of the discussions are from one group in particular, r/windowshelp. LOL, what a shit show.
I retired in 2020 and it was a huge mistake. I didn’t have a plan to make use of my time and consequently, tried to set a record for the most hours spent napping in a single calendar year. I took a low-key job in a field I enjoy to rescue myself from the torpor. It worked and I’m glad! The story.
Today on App Addict - Toy Viewer a fast, free and dependable replacement for Apple Preview when viewing graphics or making minor edits. See my review
📷 #mbApr Day 30 - Hometown Fayetteville, NC, The Hometown of the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces at Ft. Liberty (nee Ft. Bragg) - The quintessential military town. Barber Shops, boot repair, pawn shops, used car lots #photography
Having lived my entire life in the South, I don’t know if pickled eggs are a Southern delicacy, or if they are enjoyed nationwide. (Please feel free to leave a comment enlightening me if you wish). A Recipe
I wrote a review of a 59-year old album because I’m a big old Bob Dylan Fan and maybe some of you have never given him a chance. Well, you ought to. The man is a genius and he’s important and he matters. Bringing It All Back Home
Have you heard about the uninvited AI bloatware that Logitech injected into their Logi Options mouse driver last week? It’s objectively terrible and a resource hog to boot. I suggest switching to BetterMouse, an $8 superior driver with advanced features. Here’s my review
The governor of Mississippi declared April to be Confederate Heritage Month. I’d like to dedicate this song to him. Here’s to the State of Mississippi
77 Types of Notes to Keep in #Obsidian
- A scratchpad for temporary text snippets
- Published blog posts
- Bookmarks via Raindrop.io
- People you work with (co-workers)
- Customers/Clients
- A record of your daily appointments
- Weather reports
- Restaurants where you’ve eaten
- Recipes
- Watched YouTube videos
- Watched movies
- Watched TV shows
- Music you’ve listened to
- Games you’ve played/bought
- Apps you want to buy
- Receipts via email
- Apps you own
- Analytics reports from your web site or blog
- Registration info for software you’ve purchased
- A record of interactions with your family members who live separately
- Random photos
- Saved blog posts from writers you like
- Phone numbers and contact information
- Two Factor Authentication backup codes
- Copies of your insurance cards
- Lyrics to your favorite songs
- Profile pictures to use on web sites
- Your bank routing number
- Podcasts you want to subscribe to
- Books you’ve read/want to read
- Vacation plans
- Your favorite memes
- Copies of vital documents like birth certificates, marriage licenses etc.
- A copy of your resume
- Your current and past goals
- A copy of your will
- A copy of your healthcare power of attorney
- The random poem you’ve written
- Cue sheets for long bicycle rides
- Jokes you want to remember
- A list of things you love
- A record of completed tasks from your task manager
- Your favorite quotes
- Transcripts of your Q&As with ChatGPT or Google Gemini
- Saved emails
- Notes from training you’ve attended
- The encryption key for Bitlocker or File Vault
- A brag document for your job
- Technical “How to” documents for computer related tasks
- Non-vital passwords
- Wifi passwords
- Imported web pages from your read it later service
- RSS feeds from your favorite blogs
- Software manuals
- Appliance manuals
- Default settings for your computer
- A record of your Amazon purchases
- End of the year “Best of” articles to check out on books, TV, podcasts, movies, articles
- Screenshots of social media posts you like
- Purchasing wish list
- Templates for various dataview queries
- Terminal or Powershell commands too complicated to remember
- How to write in Markdown
- Search tips, syntax and operators for your favorite search engine or AI
- API Keys for various web services
- Templates for your Obsidian plugins
- Templater snippets
- All the topics in your quotes collection
- Drafts blog posts
- A history of your social media posts
- A “To Watch” list for YouTube and television
- A daily gratitude list
- A record of new things you’ve learned
- Alarm codes for your relative’s houses
- A dataview query for notes created today
- A dataview query for notes modified today
- Waypoint Folder Notes for your important folders of notes
Today on App Addict, Backup Status, a notification center widget that gives you the status of your Time Machine backups at a glance. It’s the easiest way to keep up with the health of your backups. Just set it and forget it.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. - Ezekial 25:17
National Talk Like Pulp Fiction Day
📷 #mbApr Day 28 - Community March 19,2005 at Ft. Bragg, NC - Led by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out, the largest antiwar demonstration outside a military base since Vietnam was the culmination of the most intense work I’ve ever done as a community activist. #photography
I’ve updated my /now page with all the usual stuff. I was on a writing frenzy this week, so there is links to all that, some good TV, my favorite blog post, a shirt from Basic Apple Guy and bookmark worthy web pages. My /now page
This Weeks Bookmarks - Free fries, best condiments, web history, free advice, Google graveyard, Shakespeare's inventions, best national parks

Wendy’s giving away free French fries every Friday for rest of 2024 (usatoday.com)
57 Best Condiments in the World - TasteAtlas
The Analog Web - The History of the Web
The Technium: 101 Additional Pieces of Advice from the World’s Most Interesting Man (kk.org)
Google Graveyard - Killed by Google
21 Words Created by Shakespeare (And 4 That Weren’t)
MyApplications is a database and launcher for all the apps on your Mac. It breaks them down by publisher and category, gives you detailed info on each app, its package content and system permissions. You can sort apps by date launched or by name. It’s 99 cents in the app store.
📷 #mbApr Day 27 - Surprise At the end of March one year, we were hiking in the Shining Rock wilderness in the NC mountains when we missed a turn on the trail and ended up having to pitch our tent on the appropriately named Cold Mountain. In the morning, we awoke to snowfall - surprise! #photography
Now that Shogun is over, Wonder Woman and I have moved on to season two of The Tourist starring Jamie Dornan, who I love. The season was filmed in Ireland and the scenery is beautiful and the accents delightful.
Well, I gotta confess. I argued with someone on the Internet today. Got offended is more like it. WTF. I know better, much better. The 30-second head rush I got while typing my outraged response to an accusation wasn’t worth it.
Subscriptions - Not as much as I thought...and worth it

So Worth It!
I finally bit the bullet and added up all my subscriptions and I must say that I’m relieved. I thought I was spending much more than I actually am. My TV spending (which includes the total price of Amazon Prime) is still less than my cable bill was when I cut the cord. I can’t imagine living without some of these apps and services. This is what I pay to stay entertained, informed and to keep my digital memories backed up.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
| Televison | per month | per year | | Netflix | $15.49 | | | Amazon Prime | $14.57 | | | Acorn | $6.99 | | | BritBox | $8.99 | | | Max | $9.21 | $110.49 | | Hulu | $17.99 | | | AppleTV+ | $9.99 | | | Peacock | $13.99 | | | Paramount+ | $5.00 | $60.00 | | | $102.22 | | | | | | | News | | | | Washington Post | $10.00 | | | | $10.00 | | | | | | | Software and Services | | | | Inoreader | | | | TextExpander | | | | GoogleOne AI | $19.99 | | | iCloud | $9.99 | | | Carrot Weather | $0.83 | $9.99 | | Day One | $2.08 | $24.99 | | Drafts | $1.67 | $19.99 | | Due | $0.42 | $4.99 | | iTunes Match | $2.08 | $24.99 | | Ivory | $2.08 | $24.99 | | Listy | $0.92 | $10.99 | | Overcast | $0.83 | $9.99 | | Parcel | $0.42 | $4.99 | | Play | $1.67 | $19.99 | | Reddit | $6.99 | | | Subscriptions | $0.17 | $1.99 | | Micro.blog | $10.00 | | | Scribbles | $2.50 | | | Tinylytics | $5.00 | | | Setapp | $11.24 | | | Monarch Money | $8.33 | | | Murmel | $1.99 | | | BearBlog | $5.00 | | | Contacts Sync | $0.83 | $9.99 | | MyTracks | $0.42 | $4.99 | | Sequel | $1.67 | $19.99 | | IFTTT | $3.99 | | | | $101.09 | | | | | | | Included with Cell Phone | | | | Disney TV | | | | Apple Music | | | | | | | | Blogs | | | | Hey Dingus | $1.00 | | | Matt Langford | $1.00 | | | Flohgro | $1.00 | | | Vlad Campos | $1.00 | | | Manuel Moreale | $1.00 | | | Numeric Citizen | $1.00 | | | | $6.00 | | | | | | | Total | $219.31 | |
Path Finder by Cocoatech has been around as long as Mac OS X. Its dual pane file navigation and depth of features make it a must-have tool in my app belt. It is available on Setapp or by subscription or one time purchase without upgrades.
Mac people - excluding Apple’s own apps, what software have you been using the longest? For me it’s going to be BBEdit (released in 92) and ToyViewer (released in 95), both of which I’ve used since the 90s. Honorable mention to Launchbar and PathFinder.
My 10 Favorite #Raycast Use Cases (and all the apps it replaced)

I’ve been using a keyboard driven application launcher since 2006. For the majority of that time, I was a devout Launchbar fan. installing it on Mac after Mac and dutifully paying for the infrequent upgrades. When I initially heard about Raycast, I wasn’t interested, but the uproar just kept getting louder. Tech bloggers and Reddit sang its praises and kept pointing out new features one after another. I finally relented and downloaded it. After spending my Thanksgiving break of 2023 getting it configured to match my needs, I’ve been an enthusiastic proponent ever since. I’m a paid subscriber, mostly to keep my setup synced between my two computers but also to take advantage of the many AI features only available to pro users. Not to fear though, absent AI and sync, almost everything else is included in the free version.
1. Clipboard History
I used to use Pastepal and at times I miss its ability to sync my clipboard with my phone, but there are work arounds for that. By using Raycast’s built in clipboard manager, I eliminate the need to run a separate program at all times. It’s very convenient to assign a hotkey combo to show my clipboard history and then to navigate it without the need for a mouse.
2. Kill Process
When I have the infrequent application crash, I don’t have to remember the Apple keyboard combo for force quitting an application nor do I have to use a mouse to click on the dock or Apple Menu. I just launch Raycast and type “Kill Process” and then the name of the rouge program and hit enter. Boom, just like that the crash is over and I can relaunch the application if I want to.
3. Image Modification
As a blogger, I have a frequent need to reduce the size of images before I post them on my website. The image modification plugin acts on whatever file is selected in the finder. I specify the width I want and it figures out the height for me. If I want to convert an image from a PNG to a JPG, it can handle that too. It can also pad and scale images as well as removing EXIF data.
4. Emoji Picker
I used to use Rocket, a separate program as an emoji picker but the one built into Raycast works just as well. I can select from my frequently used emojis or search all those installed. I can copy the result onto my clipboard or paste it into the active application. I use the hotkey fn+E to summon the emoji picker and I do it often 😃.
5. Unsplash
When I’m looking for a stock photo to use on my blog, I can use the Unsplash extension to do it right from Raycast without having to use a web browser. I can search and download a variety of images for free from the keyboard. I can search specific collections, my favorites or the entire catalog. I can even use Raycast to set my wallpaper to any image on Unsplash.
6. Brew
I no longer have to use the terminal to do maintenance on Homebrew, the Mac package manager. I can get a list of my installed and outdated casks and run the updates right from Raycast. I set a reminder in Things 3 to do this every weekend and I don’t have any issues keeping up with developer releases.
7. Google Search
In the age of AI, there’s still a lot to be said for searching plain old Google. I have a hotkey set to COMMAND+G to allow me to conduct a search wherever I am on my computer. The resulting window not only provides space to type a new search, it also shows me my history (which is erasable). I can open the Google page in my browser or copy the resulting URL to the clipboard.
8. Open Link in Specific Browser
Sometimes I come across a page that just won’t work in the browser I’m using. Using this Raycast command, I can choose another browser to try - Chrome, Arc, Edge - whatever. It doesn’t matter. it will take the URL I’m trying to open and send it to the browser of my choice.
9. Password Search
Raycast has plugins for most major password managers. I use LastPass (yes, I know about the breaches) but it works the same for 1 Password or Bit Warden. I can search for the password I need and either paste it into a browser window or copy it to the clipboard. No longer do I have to use a separate application or browser to get the password or secure not that I want.
10. Shorten URL
The Bitly plugin allows you to shorten URLs straight from the clipboard. Just highlight the URL in your browser’s address bar, invoke the Raycast command and you’re ready to paste the result into a document or social media post.
Honorable Mentions
Raycast quick links allow me to search YouTube, Amazon, NetFlix, HBO/Max, DuckDuckGo and Mac Updater right from the keyboard. I don’t use windows management tools that often, but when I do, they are built-in to Raycast, eliminating the need for yet another separate program.
KeyClu is a free app for aspiring power users. Once installed and running, all you have to do is press the command key twice to bring up a cheat sheet with all the keyboard shortcuts for the app listed on the display.
Today is celebrated as Liberation Day in Italy🇮🇹 where the country commigrates the partisans and allies who died fighting the fascists and Nazis in World War 2. I’d like to honor my grandmother’s brother, Gratton McFadyen, one of those who gave his life there. Never again.
📷 #mbApr Day 25 - Spine
Wonder Woman navigating the spine of a mountain on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. You can see one of the 80,000 white blazes that mark the way on the tree beside her.
Did you ever have a manic phase that let you just turn out good stuff for a prolonged period of time? It sucked when it ended, didn’t it? I had one of those phases about ten years ago and carried a camera all the way through it. A Once and Future Love
10 Lesser Known But Super Useful Obsidian Plugins
The most popular Obsidian community plugins, Excalidraw, Dataview and Advanced Tables have over a million downloads apiece. The Obsidian forums and Reddit are full of questions about the best ways to use them. There’s no doubting the power of these plugins and the value they add to Obsidian. But what about the lesser-known work of volunteer developers who make up the backbone of the devout Obsidian community? What about more niche cases and hidden gems? Let’s look at some of those. All of these have less than 50K downloads, some of them much lower than that.

1. Beautitab
Beautitab creates a custom new tab page in Obsidian with customizable elective elements for search (with native search or Omnisearch), time, greeting, recent files and bookmarks to keep often used notes readily available. You can include a daily quote and an ever changing and beautiful collection of photographs as a background.
2. Local Images Plus
Local Images Plus downloads the images in web pages you add to you vault so that if the page is taken down or the URL changes, you still have the images to illustrate your notes. It converts images to jpg from png and makes sure you don’t have duplicates by using the MD5 hashing algorithm. It will also remove orphaned images from your vault. You can even use this plugin to localize images from existing notes.
3. Auto Note Mover
Auto Note Mover allows you to set rules that automatically move notes to the folders of your choice based on tags. You can also set up rules to manually move notes based on tags or you can include a file property yo exclude a mote from being moved. If the destination folder does not exist or if there is already a note with the same name, you will receive a warning and the note will not be moved.
4. Callout Manager
Callout Manager is a plugin that makes creating a configuring callouts easy. With it you can browse a list of available callouts, change the color of callouts, create custom callouts. As a bonus, it works on mobile.
5. Extract URL Content
Extract URL content works when you select a URL in a document and execute a command from the command pallet to replace the selection with the markdown content. Additionally, if you use a file property of link:, followed by a URL, the markdown content will be created. Finally, if you have multiple links in a note, you can run a command to have notes created for each URL in a separate folder.
6. Automatic Table of Contents
Automatic Table of Contents is useful for long and detailed notes. It will create a table of contents for you at the top of a note based on the headers you have used. If you make changes to the note, the table of contents will automatically change to reflect your input.
7. Media DB
Media DB is useful if you use Obsidian to track content consumption. You can search a movie, television series, anime, game, music release or wiki article by its name across multiple APIs. You can make customized templates in each category and even convert existing notes into Media DB notes using the API.
8. Raindrop Highlights
Raindrop Highlights imports your collected bookmarks from the Raindrop.io service along with your highlights into your Obsidian vault. You can import them all or selectively choose the folders you want to bring in. You have the option of running a sync process manually or having it run automatically. If you have decent JS skills, you can even use Nunjucks to create a template for custom front matter and the importation of content with your bookmarks.
9. Attachment Management
The Attachment Management plugin is central to my workflow for the importation of web content. It centralizes the location on attachments in a single folder with subfolders matching the structure of my vault. It renames images to match the note names they are a part of. It works well with the Local Images Plus plugin. If you have folders where you don’t want the attachments moved or renamed, setting up exclusion rules is easy.
10. Waypoint
Waypoint is an Obsidian plugin that automatically generates tables of contents/MOCs within your folder notes. Once a waypoint is generated, it’ll automatically link to every note within the folder and its subfolders. The Waypoint plugin will detect when you create/rename/move/delete a note and automatically stay up-to-date.
Custom Shortcuts by Houdah Software is a free Mac application that allows you to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to any menu item in any application.
If they’re smart enough to fix a 46-year old computer from 15 billion miles away, everyone can STFU about the competence of government employees for a while. Voyager 1 Is Working Again
Our new CIO decided to take away local admin rights from all users, which from a security standpoint is the right thing to do but from a cultural standpoint is a huge and unpopular change. As part of the public face of IT, it’s not been fun explaining this to folks.
Doc Watson, the blind folk guitarist from the NC mountains been gone for 12 years now but before he passed away, I got to see him perform live. It was the musical experience of a lifetime. His music has had special meaning to me for decades. The Essential Doc Watson - a Review
Back in the days of the pre-OS X classic Mac OS, you could configure the Apple Menu to serve as an app launcher and conduit to the folder system. XMenu, a free utility from Devon Technologies offers the same functionality.
The Sympathizer 1x02 "Good Little Asian"
As he adjusts to life in Los Angeles, the Captain is forced to find someone to implicate when the General begins to suspect a mole.
I think I’m going to have to unsubscribe to another famous Apple pundit’s RSS feed, even though he seems to be on everyone else’s blogroll. His work is just corporate apologist propaganda these days complete with antiworker barbs and too much “Don’t you know who I am”. Daring it ain’t.
Adventures in Camera Land - The story of a recent weekend spent chasing good snaps, featuring the Easter Bunny, some Green Berets, hookah-smoking coeds, a Lebanese delegation and lots of unphotographed children.
If you hate trying to read articles on Medium but would really like a way to see the content, all you have to do is go to archive.ph and paste in the URL or better yet, install the extension.
The Wire - Season One, Episode One, Scene One - The Masterpiece That Kicked It Off
I knew from the very first scene in the very first episode that The Wire was a going to be a great television series. Nothing before or since has topped it for me. I was fortunate enough to experience the show as it happened, week by week, season by season, although I’ve binged it several times since. You know a show is good when you find yourself wondering what the characters are up to these days. Except Omar, because that little punk assassinated him in the corner store as he was buying a pack of Newports and his beloved Honey Nut Cheerios.
Anyway, if you haven’t watched in a while or if you’ve forgotten the absolute masterpiece of a scene that kicked the series off, you owe it to yourself to give it a watch today. See homicide detective Jimmy McNulty get schooled on the way America works by a witness at a Baltimore murder scene.
Apparency by Mothers Ruin Software is an app that also serves as a plugin for the macOS QuickLook feature. After installing Apparency, you can select an app in the Finder, press the spacebar and get a variety of information in the resulting window.
My weekly checklist in Things 3 - a Sunday chore that helps successfully wrap up a week.

In the pre-streaming days when my kids were young teenagers (circa the mid-90s) we could go rent movies on Friday nights and get an entire weekend’s worth of films for $5. It was glorious and makes for a fine memory. Remembering the 90s- the Video Store
If you use more than one browser or non-standard apps for things like YouTube, getting links to open in the app of your choice can be a pain. Using Opener by tijo inc., you can force links to open where you want them, not where your phone thinks they should open.
Pro tip - when browsing #Obsidian plugins, click the arrow in the browsing interface to change the sort order and see those most recently released. The plugin count is up to 1,626 as of today. My Obsidian Tips
I’ve come a long way from my Mom’s table in the 70s eating the Old El Paso variety with grated cheddar cheese and shredded iceberg lettuce. Tacos - A Love Affair
The One a Month Club's I've Joined So Far
Ever since @jarrod started the One a Month , I’ve looked for people to acknowledge with that token contribution. It’s not much, obviously, but it’s really the thought and the tangible appreciation that really count. I encourage everyone to pick out a few of your favorites to do the same thing.
So far I’m supporting:
-
Hey Dingus for his shortcuts and regular links posts
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Matt Langford for his work on Tiny Theme
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Manuel Moreale for his People and Blogs newsletter
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Flohgro- For his work on Drafts and Raycast
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Vlad Campos - For his videos on Obsidian and Evernote
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Numeric Citizen - For his videos about Micro.blog

It’s Saturday, time to update my /now page - with book suggestions, what’s good on TV, the stuff I wrote (including lots of app reviews), the best socks money can buy and what I cool stuff I found on the Internet this week. My /now Page
This Weeks Bookmarks - Internet Fame, Bizarre Golf Courses, Stadium Names, Nature Photography Winners, SNL's Best Clip Ever, 10 Words You Mispronounce, Penguins!

Winners 2024 — WORLD NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
The 10 most bizarre golf courses in the world | CNN
A history of the American economy through stadium names - Sherwood News
‘Wirecutter’ Best Wok Pick Shows Perils of Internet Fame - Bloomberg (archive.ph)
Beavis and Butt-Head - SNL (youtube.com)
10 Common Words You’re Probably Mispronouncing (mentalfloss.com)
iOS has a list of triggers you can use to launch shortcuts but for some reason Apple chose not to include that feature in macOS. Shortery from UnitNo5 steps in to fill that gap. It includes 17 triggers including time, WIFi connections and folder contents.
📷 #mbApr Day 20 - Ice
I usually post this sometime in late August with the title “Cancel School” when it’s 100 degrees outside and the kids have only been back a week.
Sugar 1x03 "Shibuya Crossing"
Melanie and Sugar get caught in a dicey situation—and make a new enemy. Sugar reunites with old friends, but he senses some are keeping secrets.
MarkDownload - The Browser Extension that Works With #Obsidian
There are a variety of ways to get web content into Obsidian, but the one I find myself using most frequently is the MarkDownload Web Clipper. With this tool, you can clip entire pages, snippets and images from most major browsers straight into your Obsidian vault. There are versions of MarkDownload for Chromium based browsers, Firefox, and Safari.
Customization
You can customize the file properties so that they match the standards you use in your vault. I have the creation date set to YYYY-MM-DD. Instead of “source”, I prefer to use “url”. I also like the URL included in the body of the created note so that it’s clickable. Depending which of the download methods you choose for the note, you have the ability to edit the title and include tags right from the browser. Besides custom front matter, you can also choose the flavor of markdown that you want right down to specific elements.
The default template is:

Setup
To use the Obsidian integration, you need to download and enable the Obsidian Advance URIcommunity plugin. Make any changes you want to the front and back templates. Specify the name of your Obsidian vault and the name of the folder where you want downloaded notes to go. You have choices for the download method but using the Downloads API is recommended. Finally make any changes to the markdown syntax that you want.
Usage
According to the developer “Because the website is first passed through a readability process, you won’t get extra content such as website navigation, footers and advertisements. However, please note that not all websites are created equal and as such some sites may not clip the content you expect.” To clip a page, simply click the extension button in your bowser’s toolbar. You’ll be offered a save as dialog box and the opportunity to make edits. An alternative way, one that bypasses the dialog box, is to right-click in the web page and select from the context menu for MarkDownload. Your choices are:
- Download tab as markdown
- Download selection as markdown
- Download all tabs as markdown
- Send tab to Obsidian
You can also use the context menu to copy the page or selection to your clipboard as markdown. The final context menu choice is to download images. Image Management in Obsidian - A Workflow
Better Display is a Mac app that lets you reach and control the full potential of your built in and connected displays. Your screen never looked so good after tweaking it with Better Display. Many free features, full package is $18. 15K Stars on GitHub!
From my 100 Strangers Project. This is Sana, photographed while heading for the subway near Wall Street in NYC. She was coming back from a Holi celebration, thus the chalk. #photography
Sugar 1x02 "These People, These Places"
Sugar suspects Melanie's not telling the full story. Meanwhile, he and Ruby may not be the only ones looking into the mysterious body in Olivia's trunk.
DNS over Wikipedia - a good article about a project to help get around the Google bans on reaching sites like SciHub and (the real) Pirate Bay. I’m all about getting to parts of the web the corporate overlords are trying to wall off.
Browser Extensions Personalize The Web Like Nothing Else Can - What Are Your Favorites?

Most of these extensions were designed for Chromium browsers. I am an unashamed user of Microsoft Edge. It can use the same extensions available to Google Chrome and there’s a vast selection to choose from. I don’t find that running all these extensions slows Edge down appreciably, so I install what I need. Extensions are specific to the profile you are using, but workspaces within the same profile share the same extensions. You can create a different Mac and PC profile is you find yourself using extensions that are platform specific. Here’s what I use:
- Omnivore - It’s the best read it later service around these days, featuring a mobile app with read aloud capability, newsletter subscription service, RSS feeds and a browser extension.
- MarkDownload - saves Markdown versions of web pages directly into my Obsidian vault with customized properties
- Perplexity - Although one of the unique features of Edge is the built-in access to Chat-GPT4, I like to use Perplexity as well. It’s a popular extension with over 200K downloads.
- Raindrop.io - I have a subscription and heartily endorse Raindrop.io for it’s cross platform support as well as its IFTTT integration which really helps me when I’m researching anything
- Aboard - This is the extension for the app my wife and I use to share links with each other. When I find an app, a TV show, a news story or whatever, I put it into Aboard and she gets a notification and can check it out when she has time. It’s free and useful.
- Chrome Remote Desktop - This allows me to access my home computer from other locations. It’s free, easy to set up and use and reliable. I don’t know what people pay for Screens or TeamViewer subscriptions.
- UBlock Origin- The best ad blocker on the planet. 31,000,000 downloads can’t be wrong.
- Toby - My new tab extension. It makes it easy to save and open windows full of tabs on the go. I use the free version and even though I maintain my start.me page, I stick with Toby for new tabs.
- Velja - Works in conjunction with the Mac app of the same name to open URLs in other bowsers and apps (e.g., Slack, Teams, Zoom, Freetube etc)
- Lastpass - I’ve had a paid account shared with my wife for more than a decade. Lastpass has gotten some bad PR due to a couple of incidents, but I haven’t had any issues. Still, peer pressure is getting to me and I’m looking to switch to Bitwarden when my subscription is up.
- Archive page - An indispensable extension for getting around paywalled content. I use it multiple times a dat for Medium posts and Atlantic articles.
- Postlight Reader - The Postlight Reader extension for Microsoft Edge removes ads and distractions, leaving only text and images for a clean and consistent reading view on every site.
- Reddit Enhancement Suite - I use this for one primary reason - to block pictures of other people’s graphs on the Obsidian subreddit. LOL
- Simplify Gmail- The only extension I pay for. It has hundreds of improvements (small and large) to streamline, simplify, and enhance Gmail’s design and functionality. Hide the features you don’t use, customize the ones you do including setting the list and message width and fonts.
- Raycast - Built-in page summary for Raycast Prousers.
- ChatGPT for Google- Adds a simultaneous ChatGPT search when you look for something at Google.com.
- Web Time Tracker - Provides stats on how much time you spend on web sites
- Street Pass for Mastodon- StreetPass is a browser extension that helps you find your people on Mastodon. Here’s how it works:
- Mastodon users verify themselves by adding a custom link to their personal site.
- StreetPass lets you know when you’ve found one of these links, and adds them to your StreetPass list.
- Browse the web as usual. StreetPass will build a list of Mastodon users made up of the websites you go to.
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in
A race that can’t sit still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
—Robert Service, Poet of the Yukon from “The Men that Don’t Fit In”
Listy is a private list manager for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. It tracks media in the form of movies, books and TV by metadata and web sites like YouTube by URL. I use it to keep lists of media as well as YouTube videos I want to watch and restaurants I want to visit.
The streets of Wilmington, NC #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 18: mood #photography
Sugar 1x01 "Olivia"
After solving a case in Japan, private eye John Sugar returns to LA to help find a missing woman with ties to a Hollywood legend.
Ian Betterridge, with 30+ years of review experience, gives props to MKBHD for the Humane takedown and schools Daniel Vassallo and the tech-bro cave he crawled out of. On the fine art of technology reviews
I’ve been collecting quotes for a long time. I currently use the free app, Thoughts - Inspiration Manager along with Obsidian to manage my collection. You can import from a CSV file, and it supports shortcuts.
Mural from the Falls Road in Belfast, Bobby Sands, Northern Irish Hunger Striker, died May 5, 1981 in the H Blocks of the Maze Prison as an elected MP to the British Parliament #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 17: transcendence #photography
Apple Magic Trackpad and Better Touch Tool - What Are the Best Use Cases, Tips and Tricks?

I got a new 24" M3 iMac at work last week and decided I wanted to try using Apple’s Magic Trackpad with it. I picked up a refurb on Amazon for $30 less than a new one from Apple. I got next day shipping as a Prime member. I used the included lightning cable to charge it overnight and it was ready for deployment this morning. I moved the switch into the on position, opened the Bluetooth settings in the iMac and in about 30 seconds it was paired, and I was in business.
I used it comfortably throughout the day, having no problems moving the cursor, selecting text or “right-clicking” (a two finger press on the force touch surface). There are built in gestures for trackpads in macOS 14 Sonora to:
- Swipe between pages of a document
- Open Notification Center
- Show the desktop
- Open Launchpad
- Open Mission Control
- Use App Expose
- Swipe between full-screen apps
I have Better Touch Tool from Folivera.ai installed. So far, I only have two gestures programmed:
- A single (one-finger) click on the bottom right corner initiates a Google search
- A two finger tap acts as ALT+TAB and brings up my application switcher from Keyboard Maestro.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has favorite Better Touch Tools settings they’d like to share. I’ve heard so much about the program and what it can do. I feel like I could really make use of it from a productivity standpoint.
Shōgun 1x09 "Crimson Sky"
Mariko arrives in Osaka for the fight of her life. Blackthorne and Yabushige scramble to save their own heads as their options dwindle.
My 10 Favorite Books - Most of them life changing in some way, a couple just for entertainment and one for survival.
What’s your favorite habit-tracker? I’ve used Apple Design Award Winner Streaks for years. It’s helped my make things like journaling and posting pictures to Micro.blog a part of my daily routine.
Open at Login - The Balancing Act: Every App You Run Has the Potential To Slow Your Computer Down But Some Stuff You Just Can't Live Without

We buy our computers in order to use them. Some of them get used at work so that we can earn a living. In a lot of ways they are like shovels or hammers, just tools, a means to an end. Some computers are used for a different purpose. They help us express our creativity through art, photography, poetry. They provide us a link to the news of the world, whatever world it is that we wish to live in, be it some ancient kingdom in a video game or up to the minute events in politics and war or maybe just the lives of our friends online and in real life. We get to decide. We get to choose the tools, in the form of software that we are going to use to have the experience on our computer that we want to have. In the end, it’s all subjective. Maybe you can write a best-selling novel with TextEdit and use nothing but the stock out of the box apps on your Mac. Some do. Others, however, look for the tools that fit their styles and meet their needs in a particular way. There is no right and wrong.
There are a few things that people in the Windows world get that we don’t. Windows has a built-in clipboard manager. It has Windows management tools. We can have those things, we just have to find an app to do them for us. Most often those apps are installed so that they run when you log in to your computer. I’m going to list the tools I want available to me when I’m on my laptop. Every single program in the list runs as a login item on my Mac. Undoubtably, some people are going to be SMDH. Well, IDGAF. This is what it takes for me to have the experience I want. I’ve been using a Mac for a minute (I’m a retired Mac sysadmin from the public school system) and if an app has any kind of notoriety, I’ve probably tried it. Some of these apps are available on SetApp, if that’s something you’re interested in. Unfortunately for me, I bought a bunch of them before Setapp ever existed, so I don’t get to realize a savings on all of them.
So, as Leeroy Jenkins immortally exclaimed, let’s do this.
- AlDente Pro - battery management (SetApp)
- App Tamer - CPU monitor and governor (SetApp)
- Backup Status - monitors TimeMachine backups
- Bartender 5 - menu bar management (SetApp)
- Better Display - extra controls for built in and external displays
- Better Touch Tool- automation and customization for trackpads and keyboards (SetApp)
- Clean Shot X - screen capture tool (SetApp)
- CloudMounter - mounts One Drive and Box for me (SetApp)
- Default Folder X - enhanced open and save dialog boxes (SetApp)
- File Widgets - macOS widgets to access specific folders
- Google Drive - C cloud storage and backup
- History Hound - multi-browser and bookmark database
- Keyboard Maestro - automation tool
- KeyClu - reveals keyboard shortcuts
- Mission Control Plus - Adds functionality to Mission Control
- PopClip - manipulates and enhances text selections (SetApp)
- Raycast - program launcher, emoji picker, clipboard manger, text replacement, window manager and more
- RightZoom - changes the behavior of the zoom button from full-screen to maximize
- Things Helper - helper app for Things 3 task manager
- Velja - picks browsers and default apps for different types of URLS
- XMenu - Menu bar app launcher
- Hazel - automated file management
- Nord VPN - virtual private network
- Dropzone 4 - manages files, runs scripts
- Scrap Paper - floating notes app (better than Raycast)
- Little Snitch - powerful and customizable firewall
- 24-Hour Wallpaper - time synced dynamic wallpapers (SetApp)
- Karabiner-Elements - keyboard remapper for making a hyperkey among other things
- Maestral - lightweight Dropbox client that keeps its files in the root of your home directory
- Path Finder - Finder replacement (file manager)
- iStat Menus - computer hardware monitors
- Lingon X- advanced automation tool for cron jobs and more
- Paletro - command pallet in any application (SetApp)
- Tembo - file search app
The Good Doctor 7x05 "Who at Peace"
Asher's views on the construct of marriage complicate his future with Jerome. Meanwhile, Asher also briefly revisits his religious past to aid a patient's conversion to Judaism for his fiancée.
Reddit has gone nuts over the number of apps I have installed. There are 346 at the root of my apps folder, plus another 38 in the SetApps folder. Exploring software is my hobby and an M2 MacBook Air with a 1TB drive can handle more than what I’m throwing at it. It’s not like they all run at once.
From the lips of Brett Terpstra to my ears. He’s got a whole website devoted to little pearls like this. #dimspiration @ttscoff@nojack.easydns.ca on Mastodon
3 Body Problem 1x08 "Wallfacer"
A high-level operation upends Saul's life. With emotions and expectations high, the probe launches into space as humanity enters a daunting new era.
My Daily Digital Checklist - Staying Organized and Tracking the Important Stuff. Easy to Implement. Easy to Follow.

I use three of my favorite apps to create a daily digital checklist that I run through in the last hour of the day before bed. I have a template in Drafts containing the items I want to do regulalrly. I use a Keyboard Maestro Macro to automatically create a new list every day in Things 3, my task management app.
I have three email accounts:
- A personal Gmail account
- A work account in Outlook
- A Yahoo email account just for newsletters
I have a checkbox for each of these accounts and strive to reach Inbox Zero each night. I get behind on newsletters at a times, that being my lowest priority. I also have a checkbox to make sure I’ve downloaded any attached files to Google Drive.
Drafts
I use Drafts for iOS as my quick capture tool for all text. In the evening, I look at what I’ve captured that day and route it to the appropriate app. Notes go to Obsidain Quotes for my ever-growing collection go to Thoughts. I sometimes have new todo items for Things or calendar events for Fantastical.
Things 3
I go through Things and make sure I’ve checked off everything I accomplished that day. I take a minute to add anything I might want to get done tomorrow that I have not already added.
Obsidian
I clear out any notes I’ve saved in my Obsidian inbox, adding any tags or backlinks that I need. If it’s something I want to read later, I bookmark it - because I have a weekly task to read my bookmarked notes. I also have an Obsidian folder where emails arrive whenI send them via an IFTTT action. I clear that daily too. I make sure that any Omnivore highlights, notes or articles are properly tagged and that the metadata matches my preferred format. The last step is making sure I’ve completed my daily note. I add to it throughout the day as a journal, but at night I like to reflect a bit and add what I’m grateful for that day.
Updates
I have nearly 400 apps installed on my MacBook and an equivalent number on my iPhone. I run two Mac apps nightly to check for updates, Mac Updater and Latest. It only takes a couple of minutes, and it saves me from having marathon sessions of updates if I keep putting it off. The other thing I update is Trakt, a media tracking service that allows me to keep a record of my viewing habits.
Following this plan, making it an integral part of my evening routine helps me stay on top of the things that are important to me. The systems I have in place function smoothly because of this checklist. It’s an evolving habit and I add and remove items as I need to.
Today’s Reddit idiocy - 1) Calling a fully functional app “abandonware” because it hasn’t been updated in 12 months. 2) Questioning why anyone would use multiple web browsers on a review of an app that searches the web history of multiple browsers.
If you use multiple browsers or just want a super-charged database for searching your web history and bookmarks, HistoryHound from St. Clair Software is a must have tool. It searches not only the page title but also the content of every page you visit in a centralized database.
The cacti of Austin, Texas #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 14: Cactus #photography
When the Writing Was Easy - The writing process and how it differs for me when engaged in real life vs. while on a grand adventure.
3 Body Problem 1x07 "Only Advance"
A bold proposition for the Staircase Project puts the group at odds. Will weighs his options. Ye returns to a familiar place.
If you find the floating note useful in Raycast, you need to check out Scrap Paper by Wegner Labs, the ultimate scratch pad. It’s a menubar app with customizable colors and fonts that syncs to iCloud, can be shared via the share sheet. $2.99 in the app store. Details here
The Saturday morning /now page update is complete. Includes a review of a great book, more peak TV, lots of blogging, my favorite Amazon purchase of the week and the web sites I found worthy of adding to my personal stash. My /now page
This Week's Bookmarks: Coconut Curry Red Lentil Soup, TV's Favorite Fake Beer, A Graph of Wikipedia, Real Places that Look Fake, Terrible Software Bugs, Missed Connection Ads, Voyager 1

Coconut Curry Red Lentil Soup l Panning The Globe - “I love everything about this Coconut Curry Red Lentil Soup, from the tender red lentils that melt into the creamy, curry-spiced tomato and coconut broth, to the perfect balance of heat, spice and tang that keeps it interesting right down to the bottom of the bowl.”
Meet Heisler, TV’s Favorite Beer That Doesn’t Even Exist | VinePair “You’d be hard-pressed to find any Heisler to chug while you play [a drinking game]. The beer doesn’t actually exist, but its on-screen presence is so extensive that it’s earned the nickname “the Bud Light of Fake Beers.”
I Made a Graph of Wikipedia… This Is What I Found (youtube.com) “A deep dive into the network of Wikipedia and some of the the most interesting, bizarre, and unique articles on the website.”
Photos of places on Earth that look fake, but are actually real
An anthology of terrible, terrible bugs For people who like their software stories extra-hideous
‘To the train lady with dark brown hair … ’: extraordinary stories of four couples who found love via small ads | Relationships | The Guardian “What are the chances of real romance via a ‘missed connection’? And has the internet turned these interactions from the stuff of romcoms to just a bit creepy?”
NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system | Live Science “Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround.”
I started my grandson’s political education off on the correct path back in 2005. He’ll never vote for an imperialist! #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 13: Page
Supporting Something New, An IndieWeb Developer Releases a New Tool and I Get in on the Ground Floor louplummer.lol/post/supp…
Geeking out on a New M3 Mac after Being Strapped to an Aging Dell for the Last Year and Half

After using an i3 5th gen. Dell AIO for the past year and a half at work, my new M3, 24-inch iMac with 24GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive was delivered today. As with most new installs that are highly customized, there were some ups and downs and decisions to make.
- I don’t know if I’ll stick with the magic mouse, opt for my familiar Logitech MX Anywhere 3 or dig out my Magic Trackpad. I also think I’m going to go for a larger keyboard with a number pad.
- Migration assistant worked well importing my settings and apps from the Time Machine drive of my personal MacBook. All of the Windows stuff I’m going to have to use on a VM will be what work dictates, but the Mac side is mine to customize. I didn’t have any problem changing my Setapp subscription to include a second machine.
- The weirdest bug was a mysterious photo import that kept trying to add duplicate photos to my library and wouldn’t allow me to kill the Photos app. Just as soon as I’d force quit it, it would open right back again. It persisted through reboots and various ways of ending the process. I was finally able to use a keyboard combo to repair the library and after a while the mystery import subsided.
- Getting a VM installed is an ongoing process. I couldn’t use my personal Parallels subscription and my personal license for VMWare Fusion wouldn’t work either. My commercial license is currently help up in procurement. I’m trying to get a Windows VHDX (virtual hard drive) file to work with UTM. I built one VM but it wouldn’t let me join our on-prem AD so I’m now on take two.
- Performance wise, the iMac isn’t noticeably snappier than my M2 MacBook Air. Of course I have two big-ass displays to use now, so that is an improvement.
It felt so good today to be able to use Raycast and all my comfortable keyboard shortcuts. I look forward to being able to craft Keyboard Maestro macros and Hazel workflows to simplify and streamline some of my work processes. I’ll be able to better integrate Things 3 task management and I’ll be able to quit using my iPhone as my iCloud conduit. All in all, I’m really happy to have this new tool. My boss did me a solid by letting me order an iMac and I’m grateful he believed my assertion that I could be more productive on a Mac.
On the Appalachian Trail, there are Trail Angels who provide what’s called trail magic to hikers in the form of shelter, showers, rides to town and most importantly FOOD! When I thru hiked in 2013 I came across these organic apples and generic root beers in the Pennsylvania woods. #mbapr
I look back at the kind of father I was and wish I’d been a better one. I wasn’t a natural at it. But it turns out that I do have skills as a grandfather and I’m making up for lost time. And, those grown kids of mine? They love me anyways
How come no one ever told me about The FreePrints App which works with Google Photos and Apple’s Photos and gives you up to 85 4x6 prints a month for $1.99 shipping and handling? I read about it today in Jeremy Caplan’s Wondertools newsletter.
Shōgun 1x08 "The Abyss of Life"
Toranaga's defeated clan moves to Edo and awaits their fate. Blackthorne must decide who he fights for - the lord who has turned his back on him, or the ambition that brought him to Japan in the first place.
Using #Obsidian on an iPhone - Troubleshooting Advice from All Over

The Beginning
When I started using Obsidian in December of 2023, I had an iPhone 11 Pro and I was using iCloud to sync. Whenever I launched the app, it would take thirty seconds to a minute to load, making it really impractical to use for quick capture. Looking for a better experience, I opted to switch to the paid Obsidian sync ($4 month). Unfortunately as I imported more notes into my vault from my previous app of choice, Evernote, it got to the point where Obsidian would not even load. It just looped into a never-ending series of crashes. The only solution I could find was to delete my files from local storage and re-download them from the cloud.
Troubleshooting
I turned to ChatGPT for help and got this:
- Limit your file sizes: While Obsidian is capable of handling large text files, having too many or very large files can slow down the app. Try to limit your notes to a reasonable size, and split up longer notes into smaller ones if possible.
- Reduce the number of plugins: While plugins can add a lot of functionality to Obsidian, they can also slow it down if you have too many running at once. Try disabling any non-essential plugins to see if that improves performance.
- Clear Cache: Sometimes the application cache gets clogged up and causes performance issues. Go into your iPhone settings > General > iPhone Storage > Obsidian and then tap on ‘Offload App’. This will delete the app but keep all its documents and data. Then reinstall Obsidian from App Store.
- Avoid complex queries: If you’re using Dataview or similar plugins, try to avoid overly complex queries that might be putting a strain on the app.
- Close background apps: Other apps running in the background could be affecting Obsidian’s performance. Close any unnecessary apps before launching Obsidian.
- Update iOS & App: Make sure both your operating system and your app are updated to their latest versions as performance improvements are often part of updates.
- Contact Support: If none of these tips help, it may be worth reaching out to Obsidian’s support team directly for assistance with this issue.
Remember that syncing large amounts of data can take time and resources, so try not to overload it by adding too many new files at once or making lots of edits in a short space of time.
I was kind of dubious, especially of number 5, since on iOS there really isn’t anything like a background app. It doesn’t work that way. I also didn’t have any really large notes. I turned off all the plugins I didn’t absolutely need. I wasn’t sure what constituted a complex Dataview query. Most of mine seem simple enough, looking only for a single criteria, usually a tag. I was running the latest version of iOS and of the public release of Obsidian. My results weren’t that different after trying these steps so I decided to contact Obsidian support, seeing how it’s a benefit for those who pay for sync.
The Official Take
The response from support was quick and honest. The person who wrote me acknowledged the issues and said they were being addressed in an upcoming release. She also said “However, it is worth noting that depending on the size of your vault, and what plugins you are using, you may be running to out of cache memory issues on this older device (remember I was rocking a four-year old phone). Obsidian is not the most lightweight of applications. D:
Known amplifiers of this case:
- Using heavier memory plugins like Dataview and Metabind
- Enabling the backlinks core plugin on mobile
- Enabling the graph view core plugin on mobile
- Having the vault also be in iCloud on mobile
Known alleviations of this case separate from above:
- Backing up your vault, and reinstalling Obsidian on mobile if your current install of the application was pre 17.0.”
The Solution
I did everything tech support suggested and guess what? The problem didn’t get any better. For me and the way I use Obsidian, an iPhone 11 wasn’t going to cut it. I ordered an upgrade, to the 15 Pro Max and since then I haven’t had to resort to deleting and redownloading my files. I still have to wait awhile when I launch the app while things load and sync, but it becomes useable much more quickly. I tend to use Draftsfor quick capture since it’s so easy to move notes from there into my vault. I still have backlinks and graph view turned off and I don’t sync certain folder that have lots of attachments. I don’t really need my recipe collection on my phone anyway.
Atlantic sunrise at Carolina Beach, near Wilmington, NC #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 11: Sky #photography
The XCOMP 10MB hard disk, which cost $3,398 in the early 1980s, would be about $11,900 in today’s dollars. The first computer I owned was an IBM 486/33sx with a 140MB, hard drive. I bought it at Circuit City in 1993. What was yours?
What Mastodon client do you use and why? I’m partial to Ivory by Tapbots. I use it on my Mac, iPad and Phone. The only feature I wish it had is the ability to follow multiple hashtags in a single thread.
For creative people, there are few things more important than the formative experiences that shaped them. For me, a lot of that shaping took place in front of a record player in my bedroom - My Musical Memories
“DEI is just diversity, equity, and inclusion, by the way. That’s all it is. It’s become the new word that racists say when they want to say a slur but they realize they’re in mixed company. It’s a handy watchword for people who have decided that every problem is the result of the proximal existence of Black people and other marginalized people groups, because what they actually intend is to end the existence of such people, as soon as they can, with as much violence as possible.”
–A.R. Moxon The Reframe
Clipboard Fusion - Clipboard sharing between Windows and iOS - a solution - There are plenty of Mac/iOS clipboard sharing solutions but not so much for Windows. I found an app I love and it runs on my PC, my phone and has an encrypted web version.
One of the things I love about #IndieWeb life is the global community. I live in a small city in the southern US where we have plenty of problems, but also a few bright spots. One of my goals is to be up front about all of that with the people I meet online. So I wrote about The Southern Problem
A crispy fall morning on the Cape Fear River Trail #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 9: Crispy
The dilemma I had with street photography was whether my enjoyment of the finished product was worth the chance of getting yelled at by folks who didn’t want their picture taken. I eventually found a solution #photography
Wonder Woman is in San Antonio, Texas for a conference and coincidentally, the eclipse, but she reports the skies are cloudy and she doubts she will see much. Well, there’s always the RiverWalk.
AppRaven is what the Apple App Store would be if it were interactive. Features include app-specific message bords, price drop notifications, advanced filters to find what you want, wish lists and more. It’s ad free and doesn’t accept sponsors of any type. It’s a must have for app aficionados.
The rear end of the Wall Street Bull, guarded by one of NYC’s finest #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 8: Prevention #photography
The best thing to happen in my relationship with my grown kids in the past year is my adoption of an iOS shortcut called Check on My Peeps that I found in the unlikeliest place, a forum for lovers of cheap apps. I use it to help me stay in contact with my crew. Make tech work for you.
My #Obsidian Week - Breaking Down the Notes I Created by Area and Workflow

This week I created 61 new notes in Obsidian. Some of them were original content - things I wrote. Some of them were automated. Others were the results of using templates. The breakdown looks like this:
- Omnivore clips 15 - Omnivore is my preferred method of importing web content The majority of the notes this week come from two writers I follow, Matt Birchler and Jarrod Blundy, and their posts are imported automatically.
- Blog posts 21 - I wrote twenty-one different posts this week. I write in Obsidian more often than not. I save my drafts in my vault, using file properties to track the topic and published URL.
- Daily notes 7 - I start and end every day with my daily note.. I use the Periodic Notescommunity plugin.
- Receipt 1 - Since Obsidian serves as my Evernote replacement, I figured out how to email content into my vault to save stuff like receipts.
- Work People 8 - Whenever I have an interaction with someone at work (I’m in IT at a small university), I make a reference note using a template. I find this invaluable for tracking different tech issues.
- Personal Notes 2 - these are notes not related to work or technical areas. I made one note on how to get free Paramount Plus and another on how to stop my car from spying on me.
- Tech Notes 6 - Most of these notes are clips from emails and web pages covering various tech topics like blogging, web design and miscellaneous Apple related content.
- Bookmarks 8 - I have an automated workflowto import my Raindrop.io bookmarks.
- Restaurants 2 - I like to track the places I eat out using a template that includes a link to their website, map, information on the cuisine and my rating. It’s especially helpful when traveling because it cuts down on the hassle of finding a place if I already know somewhere good in the area.
The green and granite summit of Lincoln as seen from the footpath of the Appalachian Trail atop Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. #SilentSunday #Photography #Hiking
3 Body Problem 1x06 "The Stars Our Destination"
With the world in a state of panic following a momentous declaration, Wade gathers the world's greatest minds to prepare a defense plan.
Launcher is the king of widget apps. I use it on my lock screen, my home screen, and in my work focus mode. It does much more than just launch apps, allowing you to create actions for messaging, social media, music and more. Launcher on App Addict
This Weeks Bookmarks: 100 greatest protest songs, Making art, How to help someone with a computer, Royal order of adjectives, The US can't support Israel in Gaza, Who lived when, The world's most expensive spice

Say It Loud! 100 Timeless Protest Songs (popmatters.com)
How to help someone use a computer (ucla.edu)
Copywriting 101: the royal order of adjectives (lushthecontentagency.com)
The United States Cannot Defend Israel’s War in Gaza - The Atlantic (archive.ph)
This neat interactive gives you an idea of what people lived at the same time in history
Saffron: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Spice - JSTOR Daily
I’m a day late with an update to my /now page. Yesterday, my normal update day, I found that crewing an ultramarathon in the woods for my wife was not conducive to longer form blogging.
Wonder Woman Riding in New River Trail State Park, VA #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 7: Well-Being
After 12.5 hours on her sore and blistered feet, Wonder Woman elected to take the finisher’s medal for the 50-mile distance and call it a day. Many thanks to all who offered support through the race. #ultrarunning
That’s about 75 miles worth of food and water. Wonder Woman (Mrs. Amerpie)is ahead of schedule after the first 12-mile loop and back out on the course. #ultrarunning
I spent my high scool years doing farm work so my opinion of the modern cult of cleanliness is colored a bit by my experience. Talking Dirty
Got something you’ve been wanting to watch (like Oppenheimer) on Peacock but haven’t wanted to add another damn subscription? Mad because they don’t offer a free trial? Well, here’s a pretty good work around
I added a new app to my wish list today, Rond Life Mapper and added some details on this Scribbles post. It’s one of those apps that logs your location and activities, but this one, unlike many has a good privacy policy and promises not to be a battery hog.
Lake Mattamuskeet, Dare County, NC, one of the world’s premier spots for spotting waterfowl. #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 5: Serene
Shōgun 1x07 "A Stick of Time"
Outplayed by new alliances in Osaka, Toranaga is forced to carve out a new deal with a long lost family member.
One of the practical aspects of tech is using it as a tool to boost mental health. Using two journaling tools (Day One and #Obsidian) for more than just recording geeky data I maintain a years long habit of making a daily gratitude list. Here’s why it helps.
How many times a day do you open #Obsidian? When do your record data? When do you reference data? What are your habits?

I have Obsidian in the dock on my iPhone and MacBook Air and in the taskbar of the Windows machine I use at work. Obsidian is always within reach for reference but I have some habitual times I open it to record certain data.
- First thing in the morning on my MacBook Air to start my daily note where I record what time I woke up and run a couple of shortcuts to add the day’s weather and my calendar events
- As soon as I get to work, I open Obsidian on my PC and leave it open all day to record meeting notes, people notes and notes on things I will reference later. I use u\kepano’s templates from the vault he shared on GitHub
- on my iPhone, I record where I eat lunch and link it to a restaurant template and file class I configured with the Metadata Menu plugin.
- During the evening, I record what I watch on TV using the Media DB plugin
- Before I go to bed, I have a nightly checklist in Things 3 that involves me clearing my Obsidian inbox and internally bookmarking anything I need to read later. I also use this time to make a quick three-bullet gratitude list as part of my daily note.
- I have a workflow for sending emails to Obsidian and I clear that folder out each night too.
- I check to see if Omnivore, my Read Later Service has any imported pages or highlights I need to file.
- The last thing I check is whether I need to import any bookmarks I’ve made that day in Raindrop.io. This can be automated but I prefer to do it manually to make sure I correctly file and/or link web pages to any current MOCs
3 Body Problem 1x05 "Judgment Day"
As threat levels rise, a secret mission to retrieve enemy intel ventures into dangerous territory. An ominous message reaches Earth.
Not All Boomers - the story of a recent visit with my 77-year old Dad that unfortunately exemplified a bunch of Boomer stereotypes in a very uncomfortable 30-minute span.
I was working in publics schools at the turn of the century when we “got the Internet”. We ordered these things by the pallet. They floated around for years. #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 3: Card
3 Body Problem 1x04 "Our Lord"
Jin seeks justice after a death rattles the group. Investigators learn of an extremist group devoted to an otherworldly entity ahead of a major summit.
“Experience” is rarely the verb you’re looking for. Reword your sentence with a more clear and muscular focus on what actually happened—and who or what caused it to happen. So, maybe don’t say “I am experiencing technical difficulties” if you really mean “I broke the internet.” You’re not fooling anyone.
Merlin Mann
Seven years in prison. As a progressive older adult, I can’t believe that I worked in the correctional system, but the callowness of youth and limited opportunities in the rural south put me on a gun-tower in the late eighties and early nineties. I can still feel the effects. - Prison Time
More info on Wonder Woman, my #ultrarunning wife.. I found out today that she has to leave on a business flight for Texas, just hours after staying awake long enough to complete a 100-mile footrace. Her attitude is “I might get to see the eclipse!” I can’t even.
The Good Doctor 7x04 "Date Night"
Shaun and Lea struggle to balance their parental duties with their personal lives. Meanwhile, Park and Morgan try to find the time and space to reignite their romance amidst the demands of parenthood and work, and Lim's mother makes a surprise visit.
How to Talk to Tech Support - I Beg You to Use These Techniques to Get Your Issues Solved Quickly and Efficiently While Keeping Your Cool and Getting Back to Work! #technology

I started working in IT support right after Windows 95 was released. I’ve worked in manufacturing health care, banking and insurance, but primarily in K-12 and higher education. In some way or another, I’ve always been involved in end-user support. Currently I have a relatively low stress job at a well-run private university where the relationship between the IT department and the faculty, staff and students is pretty good.
Almost every adult in 2024 has experienced technical difficulties that required them to call tech support, whether it’s the help desk at your job, your Internet service provider or the manufacturer of your cell phone. I’m not immune to this. I switched ISPs last year and my new setup didn’t work when I followed the directions. It was frustrating, but I wanted to solve the problem, so I called.
I promise you that if you follow the steps below, your technology problems will get solved faster and with better results than if you don’t. And, trust me, I’m sure you’ve dealt with some incompetent or mean or unfriendly tech support folks in the past. I get it. That’s out of your control. What is in your control is how you react. Don’t act aggrieved or victimized. Be solution oriented and things will work out better.
- Restart your computer. Seriously. This solves many, many problems. Do this even if you don’t think it will help.
- Answer all the questions you are asked truthfully. Don’t say you restarted you computer if you actually didn’t.
- Remember that the person on the other end of the phone almost always wants to solve your problem too. They are not the cause of your problem. Technology is complicated and finnicky and sometimes things don’t work. That’s the price we pay to live in the 21st century.
- Obey the Golden Rule. Talk to the person on the other end of the phone like you would want to be spoken to.
- If you are calling because you got an error message, know what the error message said and be able to relay that information to tech support. Don’t just say “I got an error
- Be prepared to tell tech support what you were doing when the problem occurred. (e.g., What program were you using? What other programs were open? Did the computer make any sounds?)
- If this is a reoccurring problem, how long has it been happening and what was your reason for not reporting it sooner? (Did you have a solution to the problem that no longer works?)
- Can you reproduce the issue or is it intermittent? If you can reproduce the issue, know what exact steps you took before the problem surfaced. (Keep in mind that intermittent problems are among the most difficult to resolve because of the difficulty in determining if the issue is fixed)
- What have you tried on you own to solve the problem? (Not that you have to solve your own issue, but it doesn’t hurt to Google it. It might be something simple that can save you a call.)
- Be familiar enough with the tools you use to know what operating system your computer uses and (especially if you are on a corporate network) what the name of your computer is.
- Do your best within your abilities to describe the issue. It’s not cute to use language like ‘thingy” or “doohickey”. If you don’t have the IT vocabulary to explain an issue, there’s nothing you can do about that. Just use plain language and you’ll be moving towards a solution.
- If you are having a problem with something online, try to know if your computer is wireless (bonus points if you know the name of the Wi-Fi network) or if it is connected to a network through a cable.
Look, I understand technology is frustrating. Trust me. I do. My whole professional life has been spent fixing things that aren’t working as expected. But don’t be angry at the person who is there to help you. There’s no need to tell them how many years you’ve been using a computer or what high-speed tech job your kid has. Just work together, get the problem solved and then you can get back to work.
My grandson doesn’t quite grasp the concept of lawn maintenance yet. He thinks his toy lawnmower doubles as a snowblower. #mbapr Micro.blog photo challenge April 2024. Day 1: toy
Is Micro Monday still a thing on Micro.blog? Regardless, I want to shout out one of my favorite blogs, HeyDingus by @jarrod. He also founded the One a Month Club
The trees at Ft. Fisher, the scene of a Union victory on the coast of NC during the Civil War #photography
3 Body Problem 1x03 "Destroyer of Worlds"
Obsessed with their virtual reality quest, Jin and Jack race to solve a complex riddle — but advancing to the next level brings harrowing consequences.
At the end of the street where I’ve lived for thirty years stands an unassuming blue building housing Zorba’s Gyro on a Spit, a restaurant I’ve frequented for even longer. An ode to my favorite diner, a comforting home away from home, a place where I watch everybody but me grow up.
This Week's Bookmarks - Subscriptions worth paying for, book summaries online, unofficial holidays, a rare bird, best small town in every state, 50 historical photos, things that don't work

Six Subscriptions Actually Worth Paying for, According to Reddit | Lifehacker - The article discusses different subscription services that Reddit users recommend as being worthwhile based on the value they provide: airport pre-check membership which allows faster security screening at airports. An air filter subscription service ensures the right sized filters are delivered regularly. A subscription to Cook’s Illustrated magazine is recommended for recipes tested by experts. The Great Courses is mentioned for lifelong learning opportunities across different topics. A national parks pass provides access to national parks and other federal recreational lands. Dropout.tv is a comedy streaming service with original shows
BookPecker.com: 14509 books summarized in 5 bullet points - Discover your next read! Browse bullet point summaries of thousands of books, find books smilar to those you own, and add new items to your reading list.
Laugh: By looking up your birthday on this list of unofficial holidays.
This Bird Is Half Male, Half Female, and Completely Stunning - The New York Times (nytimes.com) - This honeycreeper was first observed in October 2021 on a small farm in Villamaría, in western Colombia, and soon became a regular visitor. It appeared to be a bilateral gynandromorph: female on one side and male on the other. (video)
The Most Charming Small Towns in Each U.S. State - AFAR - Consider these 51 beautiful places found across the country—including Puerto Rico—for your next trip
50+ Must-See Moments In History (historydefined.net) - Here are 50 must-see historical moments – significant events that have shaped our world. From wars and revolutions to scientific discoveries and technological innovations, these are some of the most important moments in human progress. (photos)
Things that don’t work (dynomight.net) - A somewhat controversial list of things people use that don’t actually do what they are intended for. Among the first items is acupuncture and multivitamins.
Saturday morning, time to update my /now page. This week I read a great article from The Atlantic, wrote a bunch, found some new links and bought the best charger ever from Anker.
3 Body Problem 1x02 "Red Coast"
Auggie's countdown jeopardizes her nanotech work. Jin becomes engrossed in an otherworldly VR game. Ye Wenjie follows through on a radical idea.
My Daily Note in #Obsidian - Byte Sized Chunks for Customizing Every Element, Plugin Recommendations and Links
I love a good shared Obsidian Daily Note post. My own daily note is an amalgamation of elements I’ve gleaned from other people. I’ve discovered some useful plugins as a result. The data I capture is valuable to me. The way I capture it is automated to an extent and easier to enter as a result of what I’ve learned. I’m going to offer the same to you, in hope that you’ll find something useful. I use the community plugin, Periodic Notes and not the Daily Note core plugin.
The first thing I do on my computer in the morning is start my daily note. I record the beginning of the day data using the tools that follow.
Properties
---
title: Daily Note Template
url:
tags:
- dailynotes
- journaling
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Author: amerpie
status:
wake time:
---
My properties (YAML frontmatter) use Templater snippets for the creation date and modification date. Templater is one of the most useful plugins in the Obsidian universe and has plenty of other uses. The status: property is one I use to delineate whether the day is a work day, at home day or a travel day. The wake time property is where I record what time I get up each morning. You could enter anything you want to track in properties, such as your weight or the distance of your morning run/walk. You can use the Dataview community plugin to quantify that information later.
My H1 Heading
I use another Templater snippet for the H! heading. Instead of rendering the date as YYYY-MM-DD, it displays the format as Friday, March 29th 2024, giving me a little more information when I refer back to it later.
<% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>
The Quick Add Button
The next element on my Daily Note uses the Buttons community plugin to access the actions I have set up via Quick Add.. Not only do these actions let me make entries under the appropriate heading on my daily note, they also serve as shortcuts to other notes I create frequently, namely my people notes, meeting notes and page formats I use for specific types of blog posts. Mike Schmitz does a great tutorial on setting this up over at The Sweet Setup.
Button Syntax
Button
name Add entry
type command
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd
color default
Quick Add Entries

The Task of the Day
I prefer to use the dedicated task manager Things 3 to manage my tasks. I do however list my primary task of the day at the top of my daily note. This is the one thing I want to get done that day if everything else falls by the wayside. I create this task using a hotkey to run an iOS shortcut crafted with Carlo Zottman’s excellent Actions for Obsidian. . This requires me to create a placeholder in my template styled like this.
%%new-tasks-here%%
Morning Weather
Once again, I use Actions for Obsidian and an iOS shortcut to add the morning weather to my daily note. I use a button added to the ribbon bar via the Commander community plugin to launch this shortcut. I use this placeholder:
**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%
Appointments
I add the appointments from my default calendar with this shortcut. The placeholder is formatted like this:
## 📅Appointments
%%Appointments%% <br>
Daily Quote and Previous/Next Days Entries
Templater has syntax to add a daily quote to your notes and I use it with joy. I live quotes and collect them in my my vault. In fact, I have a Github repository where you can download over 500 notes of markdown formatted quotes divided by the author/speaker.
Syntax
<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]]
Result

Headers for Running Entries
My notes main body consists of three main sections. I use headers for these and the headers serve as placeholders for the quick add button I mentioned above. I add to the note throughout the day and add finishing touches at night as part of my end of the day routine.

Notes Created Today and Notes Modified Today
I have two Dataview queries in my Daily Note template. I have them formatted as callouts so that I can fold them up when I don’t need to see the information and therefore don’t have to do a lot of scrolling around.
The first callout shows me the notes created on the same date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's New Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date ```
The second callout shows me the notes modified on the date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's Modified Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date ```
They appear like this in the note.

Final Touches
As I mentioned, I use Things 3 for task management. There’s a plugin for Things 3 which appends a log to your note when you complete tasks, Things 3 Logbook. This is a useful record of different tasks I accomplish each day. I also use the Things 3 Today community plugin to display my day’s tasks in the sidebar while I make entries in my daily note.
Logbook

Today View for Things 3

The Template
---
title: Daily Note Template
url:
tags:
- dailynotes
- journaling
creation date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
modification date: <% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Author: Lou Plummer
status:
wake time:
---
# <% tp.date.now("dddd, MMMM Do YYYY", 0, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %>
```button
name Add entry
type command
action QuickAdd: Run QuickAdd
color default
%%new-tasks-here%%
**Morning Weather** - %%Weather%%
📅Appointments
%%Appointments%%
<%tp.web.daily_quote()%>
Previous day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').subtract(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Yesterday]]
Next day: [[<% fileDate = moment(tp.file.title, 'YYYY-MM-DD').add(1, 'd').format('YYYY-MM-DD') %>|Tomorrow]]
📚Learnings
✏️Journal Entries
👍Gratitude
> [!abstract]- Today's New Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
> ```
> [!abstract]- Today's Modified Notes
> ```dataview
> LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date
> ```
Ian Betterridge’s 10 Blue Links - One of my favorite link newsletters complements of @ianbetteridge@writing.exchange. This week there are some long reads of classic tech journalism made relevant by current events.
“Joy has nothing to do with ease and everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” — Ross Gay
I gotta quit taking my iPad to bed or I’ll keep waking up at 1am and watching vintage Johnny Cash videos although I can think of worse lullabies.
3 Body Problem 1x01 "Countdown"
Unsettling events put a group of brilliant friends on edge as a mystery unravels with origins tracing back to China during the Cultural Revolution.
Saw a great post today from writer @jhpot@mastodon.social about how we can screw with corporate social media by not joining the outraged chorus after events intended to provoke us. The topics of outrage and online speech motivate me to do a little self-examination. I thought I’d share
If anyone needs more storage, Amazon has an external Seagate 4TB hard drive on sale today for $99. It’s not my affiliate link, it’s just a good short-time deal.
Good riddance to Joe Lieberman, the man who helped defeat Universal Health Care when the Affordable Care Act was passed during the Obama administration. A sell out’s sell out.
I couldn’t resist the urge to participate in the Scribbles experiment, so I decided to put my free domain from omg.lol to use (once I get all the DNS details). In honor of the heritage of the IndieWeb, my first contribution is a repost from 1997, GeoCities style - The Road Trip
Shōgun 1x06 "Ladies of the Willow World"
Lady Ochiba returns to Osaka in order to accelerate the Regents' campaign against Toranaga. In Ajiro, Toranaga tests Mariko's loyalty to his cause.
How to Talk to an Actual Person at Amazon

For confusing situations, skip the forms and bots. An Amazon customer service rep will call you if you know this trick. While logged into your Amazon account, go to the Contact us page.
Choose the issue that mostly closely matches your problem, then go through the form. At the end, choose Request a phone call. Click that, enter your phone number, and you’ll see an estimated time before you receive the call. I’ve never waited more than three minutes. Have your order number handy!
📲 If you do need a phone number for Amazon Customer Service, it’s 1‑888‑280‑4331. You might want to save that in your contacts. I don’t want you to get scammed by Googling support numbers that turn out fake.
From The Current newsletter
How many places do you back up your photos? I currently using iCloud, Google Drive and Amazon Photos because they are all set it and forget it and they are all part of subscriptions I have for other reasons anyway.
The Good Doctor 7x03 "Critical Support"
Shaun continues to be tested by Charlie when their newest case prompts her incessant stream of questions – all in pursuit of an answer. Meanwhile, Morgan struggles on who to name as guardian for Baby Eden should anything happen to her.
I found a great feature in the Raindrop bookmarking app I wasn’t aware of - you can create public pages of shared bookmarks that don’t require anything from the viewer. no login, no account. I put together a list of worthy sites to share to test it out. Cool Tools and Websites Take a look!
I love free and open-source software and the people who work on it. I have plenty of it installed on my machines. I have also worked all my life to afford the things I want and sometimes I want the damn Cadillac of screen-shot apps instead of what the OS offers. That’ll get you killed on Reddit. LOL
A Dozen Reasons to Try SetApp - #Mac Apps I Use Every Day and How Much I Save

SetApp is a monthly subscription service that offers access to 240 different Mac apps starting at $9.99 a month. I currently have 37 different applications from Setapp installed on my MacBook Air. Some of them are startup items that run all the time when my Mac is on. Others I use an a regular basis for maintenance and routine tasks. They have quite a few apps that I’ve purchased in the past but no longer have to pay for upgrades because they are now included in my plan. I’ve listed a dozen of my favorite programs from Setapp, along with their cost if purchased or subscribed to separately to give you an idea of what you can save with a subscription. If you use my affiliate link, you can get a 30-day trial instead of the seven-day trial they normally offer.
- BetterTouchTool
- CleanMyMacX
- MindNode
- WidgetWall
- 24 Hour Wallpaper
- CloudMounter
- AlDente Pro
- HoudahSpot
- PathFinder
- Default Folder X
- Dropzone
- CleanShot X
BetterTouchTool
BetterTouchTool allows you to customize various input devices like trackpads, mice, and keyboards. It offers a wide range of gesture definitions for the Magic Mouse, Macbook Trackpad and Magic Trackpad, and allows users to trigger keyboard shortcuts, system actions or custom scripts. Additionally, the app also features window management and a clipboard manager. My favorite actions include one click trackpad action to launch a Google search and launching the Raycast emoji picker and clipboard manager. ($22 for a lifetime license when purchased without SetApp)
CleanMyMacX
CleanMyMac X is a versatile maintenance utility designed to keep your Mac running smoothly. It includes features for junk file deletion, system optimization, application updating and uninstalling, plus malware protection. I have a reminder to run the optimizer once a week. (Yearly subscription price is $34.95 when purchased without SetApp)
MindNode
MindNode is a powerful tool designed for creating mind maps and visualizing ideas on your Mac. It has customizable layouts, themes, and easy-to-use drawing tools. I’ve been using it for over 10 years and took advantage of the SetApp version to avoid having to pay an upgrade fee. (Yearly subscription $19.99 when purchased without SetApp)
24 Hour Wallpaper
The 24 Hour Wallpaper app for Mac provides high-quality, time-synchronized wallpapers that adapt to match local daylight conditions. The wallpapers change throughout the day, mirroring natural or city scenes suited to the time. I like it more than the Bing wallpaper app I previously used. (One-time purchase price is $9.99 without Setapp)
CloudMounter
CloudMounter connects your Mac to cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. It mounts these services as local drives, allowing you to manage your online files directly from Finder. I like it because it let’s me avoid having to run the native app for each application. (annual license is $39.99 when purchased without SetApp)
AlDente Pro
AlDente Pro protects your MacBook battery by intelligently managing its charging behavior. It lets you set a maximum charge percentage to prolong battery lifespan and offers various customizable settings for optimal battery health. I keep my maximum charge set to 70% on my MacBook Air, although I can easily top it off to 100% if I need to be on battery for a prolonged time. (One time purchase of $25 without SetApp)
HoudahSpot
HoudahSpot transforms your Mac’s search capabilities. It builds upon Spotlight, offering complex search criteria including file attributes, content, and metadata. I use the saved search functions to find all the Markdown files created in the last seven days (run as a weekly task) to import my Obsidian files into EagleFiler. (One-time purchase price of $39.00 without SetApp)
PathFinder
PathFinder is a powerful file management alternative to macOS Finder. It offers advanced features like dual-pane browsing, batch renaming, deep folder comparisons, and customizable interface modules. This is another app I’ve used for more than a decade. (Annual subscription $29.99 without SetApp)
Default Folder X
Default Folder X enhances your Mac’s Open and Save dialog boxes. It offers quick access to recent folders, favorites, powerful keyboard shortcuts, and default folder management. I’m a long-time user and no longer have to pay any upgrade fees. (One-time license costs $34,95 without Setapp)
Dropzone
Dropzone supercharges your Mac’s productivity with its drag-and-drop interface. It lets you send files to apps, shorten URLs, execute custom scripts, and much more – all by simply dragging files or text snippets onto its icon. I use a script to automatically install apps from DMG files and a shortcut that uploads media files to Micro.blog (License is $35 without Setapp)
CleanShot X
CleanShot X elevates screen capturing on your Mac. It offers far more than basic screenshots with tools for annotations, blurring, screen recording, and a scrolling capture mode. CleanShot X delivers professional-looking visuals and clear communication effortlessly. I’ve used other apps like Shottr and SnagIt) and I find that CleanShot X offers more. (Subscription is $10 a month for the cloud service plan without SetApp)
The Gentlemen 1x08 "The Gospel According to Bobby Glass"
A familiar face returns to settle a score with Freddy. Bobby decides it's time to retire and wants Eddie and Susie to make the necessary arrangements.
App Update Workflow for Macs Using HomeBrew and the CLI version of the Mac App Store. It Finds Updates Other Apps Miss. #macOS
I’m one of the lucky people whose hobby and work coincide. I’ve been working in IT support since the 90’s, yet i still enjoy tinkering on my own machine with new software and workflows. As a result, I have more than 300 apps installed on my M2 MacBook Air and I am fanatical about keeping them up to date. I run two updaters every night as part of my routine:
- Mac Updater from Core Code - a buy once (no subscription) app with lots of features including release notes, links to the title’s home page, automatic updates for most programs, app store links and more.
- Latest from Max Codes - a free app that catches app updates that Mac Updater sometimes misses.
The Mac App Store is supposed to update apps you purchase there automatically but most find that it sometimes runs days and days behind. Both Mac updater and Latest check Mac App Store Apps so I was really surprised recently when I discovered even they miss some releases.
I found this out after installing the command line version of the Mac App Store via HomeBrew. After installation, you can run the following command to see what’s out of date on your machine:
$ mas outdated
If anything shows up, you can then run the following command to update your apps:
$ mas upgrade
I now have a weekly reminder in Things 3 to fire up iTerm to run both commands.
I run two updater programs every day on my Mac because I’m fanatical about keeping my 300+ apps at the current version. Imagine my surprise when I installed the HomeBrew version of the Mac App Store and ran updates from there. It found a half dozen apps that were several versions behind. WTF?
Web 4.0 is the phase where you spend a lot of time deleting accounts from all the web 2.0 properties that enshittified or turned evil.
–John Francis
A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink their lesson plans A story about how today’s college students don’t understand how to find a file, or even what a file is.
“Take their phones away and get ‘em on Windows 98.”
Shōgun 1x05 "Broken to the Fist"
Blackthorne and Mariko struggle to contain the secret that could get them both killed. Yabushige searches for the spy who has betrayed his intentions to Lord Toranaga.
“Donald Trump ordered a cheeseburger at a campaign stop” is accurate to the extent that nothing about it is false, but it is not a true story—not if you care about the full context. “Donald Trump is a popular and politically empowered fascist running to become a dictator, and he intends suppression and oppression and murder, and he ordered a cheeseburger.” That’s the true story.
–A.R. Moxon
It’s Saturday which means it’s time to update my now page. This week I’m reading a long Atlantic article and revisiting my favorite book, watching a Guy Ritchie series on Netflix, browsing some helpful web sites, enjoying a lifetime guarantee on a basic but necessary product and loving today.
This Week's Bookmarks - Coolest Street in the World, Funniest Novels, Movies That Couldn't Be Made Today, Greatest All-Time Albums, Photo Award Winners, Scientific Mysteries, and More!

If you are working on your bucket list or maybe you just have the travel bug, here are some ideas for you - 30 Coolest Streets in the World Right Now (timeout.com)
Do you and your co-workers play that morbid death game? If so, here is the definitive score-keeping site! - Deaths in 2024 - Wikipedia
This list dates from the publication of Catch 22 to the present, because we could all use a laugh! - 22 of the Funniest Novels - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
I think there’s pretty much a consensus that classic TV shows like All In The Family couldn’t be made today but what about movies? - 30 Movies That Could Never Be Made Today | Lifehacker
Back in the days when downloading and owning music was a thing, I collected the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 albums of all time, something about which I was extraordinarily proud. That was 20+ years ago and the list has changed since then, and here’s why. - What Makes an Album the Greatest of All Time? (pudding.cool)
Who doesn’t like looking at great photography? - 2024 Open competition Winners & Shortlist | World Photography Organisation
Ask any entertainment question and instantly get personalized picks for TV shows, movies, books and podcasts! - Let AI Make Recommendations
What is the universe made out of? How should we define death? Where did dogs come from? And more! - 17 of the most astounding scientific mysteries - Vox
A letter to the editor that will restore your faith in book reviews (and maybe humanity).
My #Obsidian Journey and the Resources That Helped Me - Sample Vaults, Videos, Web Sites, Newsletters and Communities

After retiring from my IT career in public education in 2020, I found myself less engaged with technology news and updates. My previous habit of upgrading my phone yearly faded, and I continued using the software already on my MacBook. An Evernote user since 2009, I relied on it for everything from technical specs to recipes. My subscription auto-renewed annually without much thought.
Within a few years, it became clear that staying at home full-time wasn’t for me. Through connections, I landed a relaxed role in the IT department at a small, private university in my hometown. It’s the perfect post-retirement job: I enjoy helping faculty, staff, and students with their tech problems without the headaches of being on-call, budgeting, or strategic planning.
Around that time, I noticed an unfamiliar program, Obsidian, gaining popularity among the tech circles I used to follow. David Sparks (MacSparky) wrote an entire field guide about itand The Sweet Setup offered a sample starter vault. Since the guide was expensive and the sample vault was free, I naturally started there. I downloaded Obsidian and figured out how to access my new files.
A Starter Vault
The Sweet Setup’s Starter Vault includes articles about common Obsidian use cases like journaling. It provides instructions on how to download, install, and configure community plugins, and how to integrate them with the core plugins that come built-in, like the daily note plugin. My journaling habit and my use of the Quick Add plugin began on day one thanks to this resource.
While other demo vaults are available, I recommend waiting a bit before exploring them. This gives you time to familiarize yourself with your own setup before adopting someone else’s system. Some notable ones include:
- The Ellane W. Obsidian Demo Vault Ellane is a strong advocate for plain text within the Obsidian community. I’ve interacted with her on Mastodon: @ellane@pkm.social
- The Lean Productivity Starter Vault This vault by Sascha Kasper is comprehensive, covering organization, metadata, templates, core and community plugins, and even CSS snippets.
YouTube
I realized early on that Obsidian has a steeper learning curve than most software, but there seemed to be ample resources to help. True to the 21st century, I turned to YouTube and stumbled upon the perfect beginner’s video: Nick Milo’s Linking Your Thinking. He has an entire beginner’s series, but that first video truly explains the philosophy behind Obsidian. Two other YouTubers whose content I found particularly helpful were:
- Nicole van der Hoeven: A Senior Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs, Nicole shares about learning in public, note-taking, and other interesting topics. Her videos are conversational, mostly stay under 20 minutes, and demonstrate concepts clearly. You can follow her on Mastodon: @nicole@pkm.social
- FromSergio Though he no longer produces Obsidian videos, Portuguese YouTuber Sergio’s past content is excellent. Like Nicole, his videos are short, to the point, and easy to understand.
Other YouTubers I enjoy include Danny Hatcher, No BoilerPlate,, and Dann Berg, who also has a blog linked from his YouTube page.
Communities
Obsidian users gather in three main online spaces:
- Reddit With over 126,000 members, r/ObsidianMD is a massive subreddit. Be ready for the deluge of graph screenshots, but it’s also a helpful place to ask questions, stay updated on plugins, and interact with the community. Obsidian’s CEO, u/kepano, even moderates and interacts with users there.
- Official Obsidian Forum This is the best place to go when you’re stumped by a problem. I’ve always received an answer to my questions here. Superuser holroy even wrote me a working DataView query on the first try!
- Obsidian Members Group on Discord A huge and somewhat chaotic space. Many plugin developers hang out here.
Websites
Obsidian Rocks is the product of Tim Miller (@WebInspectInc on Twitter). I finally got the courage to use the complicated and powerful Linter plugin after reading Tim’s article on it - Automate Your Notes With Obsidian Linter. Another helpful article was Obsidian Mobile: Five Tips for Success, which helped me configure my iPhone settings so that I had many fewer problems. There are plenty of other articles on Obsidian Rocks on all facets of the apps use and I encourage you to check them out.
Prakash Joshi Pax on Medium - One of the most helpful articles on Obsidian that I’ve ever read came from this site, Obsidian Templater Snippets I Wish I Knew Sooner.(Note: I link to Medium articles through archive.ph to avoid the paywall). There is new material being added regularly and it’s worth bookmarking and checking back. Pax also has a newsletter worth reading and he occasionally makes videos.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t plug my Obsidian “how to” articles. I’ve written about plugins, backup, vault structure and more. I also answer questions as best I can. My whole career has been helping people with technology issues and I still enjoy it.
Newsletters
Aidan Helfant has a website, YouTube channel and a podcast about Obsidian, geared towards students but helpful for all Obsidian beginners. I subscribe to his newsletter and find value in it.
Mike Schmitz has a website, Obsidian University where you can subscribe to his newsletter, download a starter vault or sign up for his (paid) Obsidian class. I got a lot out of his material, especially his video on configuring Obsidian’s settings.
Jasmine Paris has just become the first woman ever to finish The Barkley Marathons. IYKYK
To my fellow IT support people - how many times have you seen executive types who get a laptop/docking station and then they get a second laptop because they can’t be arsed to disconnect/reconnect their primary machine? Is this as common as it seems or am I working in the Twilight Zone?
I have to SMDH at how personally offended some of the usual suspects in the Apple Pundit World are acting over the DOJ lawsuit. I’m like ,“Dude, it’s a trillion dollar corporation, not your Mom. Calm TF down.”
The Gentlemen 1x07 "Not Without Danger"
Bent on vengeance, Susie goes against her father's orders. Eddie offers to help her but is less certain than ever about where his allegiances lie.
Inoreader - Absolutely Worth It or Why I Love My RSS Provider
Like most of us these days, I spend a fair amount of money on app and service subscriptions. Some of it is pretty painful (Evernote!) but the cash I spend on my RSS service, Inoreader is worth it and more. I get so much value from the myriad of ways Inoreader helps me consolidate, curate and collect information from around the Internet. It does so much more than just provide a list of articles from my specified sources.

Custom Monitoring Feeds
My favorite feature, hands down, are the custom monitoring feeds Inoreader allows me to create. It scours the web every hour to search for articles using my keywords. I have monitoring feeds to help me track my favorite software titles for news and tips/tricks. The wizard that creates these feeds lets me decide whether I want to search entire articles or just titles. I can search the entire Internet or just sources from sites whose main RSS feed I follow. As with all feeds on Inoreader, I can set up a highlighter for my search terms (Obsidian, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Micro.blog). I can filter out terms I definitely do not find interesting (Android, Apple Vision Pro, Trump). Finally, I can filter out duplicates and near duplicates so my feed doesn’t get inundated on dates when one of my keywords makes the news, for example when updates to a certain title get released. It is possible to place all these keyword monitoring feeds into a folder and to view the output combined. I can even generate an OPML file with the output to share with others!
Newsletter Subscription Replacement
Inoreader allows me to generate email addresses to use in subscribing to newsletters. That way I get the benefit of their content without having my mailbox clogged up. Like every other feed, these newsletters can be saved to OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. I can export them to Pocket or ReadWise, Instapaper, Blogger, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon or a custom location.
Automation
If you highlight text in any RSS article or newsletter, you can use the highlight to trigger an IFTTT applet. You can do the same with any article you mark to read later. In fact IFTTT has a dozen different triggers for Inoreader and over 2000 services you can connect it to.
To add feeds to Inoreader you can use any of a variety of browser extensions, although I find that a simple bookmarklet works best for me. You can read your feeds in a web browser or in your choice of RSS readers like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I like their web interface so much that on a desktop, I choose to use a stand-alone web app of their site to read my feeds since it has easy access to most of the extra features offered. On my iPhone and iPad, I use their app as opposed to a separate RSS reader. Their iOS and Android apps have an offline mode allowing you to download content to read later, useful for flights and helping you avoid a separate subscription to a read it late service.
Organization and Backup
You can use folders or tags (or both) to organize your feeds. You can set up notifications for different keywords or material from certain sources. In the settings section of the Inoreader you can look at the health of all of your feeds and easily determine if one is down, allowing you to contact the blogger or publisher of the site in question. If you currently have an RSS provider or reader, Inoreader can easily import your feeds and conversely, it can export feeds for you if you want to use them elsewhere. Your feeds get backed up everyday and you can set them to be saved to a cloud folder synced with your computer so you can have ready access to them. I use Dropbbox for this.
Other Features
- Built in podcast player
- Turn Google News searches into feeds
- Customize the look with your own CSS if desired
- Get accelerated updates on certain feeds
- Annotate and save articles
- Multi-lingual content
- Sync your YouTube subscriptions
- Filtered Reddit feeds (see Obsidian posts without having to look at pictures of other people's graphs)
Pricing for all the features I mentioned is $7.50 a month paid annually
The Gentlemen 1x06 "All Eventualities"
Eddie's doubts about Susie continue to grow. But there's 15 million pounds of dirty money to be laundered before she'll consider leaving the estate.
This was March 19, 2004, nineteen long years ago today at Ft. Bragg, NC. My son was on active duty, and I hated the war in Iraq with a furious urgency. I feel like I’ve been protesting all my life, but my work in that movement remains something about which I will always be proud. #VetsForPeace
My job recently converted our helpdesk/ticketing system from the ancient Novell Service Desk to Jira/Atlassian and I just completed my first two projects, the first of many to come. Bitlocker and Firewalls for everybody!!!
Drug Company - “This medicine works really good so lets make it really expensive”
Insurance Company - “This drug is really expensive, so lets make it really hard for people to get”
Drug Rep - “This doctor really likes tacos. I’ll get him some so he will prescribe my drug and I can go to Cozumel”
Doctor - “I like tacos”
Patient - “I’m in pai—Yes, I’ll hold”
Doctor’s Office Employee - Hangs up on patient. Eats leftover tacos.
We’ve updated the rules of our flagship server mastodon.social today. Most are the same with some clarifications, but one rule is new: Content created by others must be attributed, and use of AI must be disclosed. Profiles that only post AI-generated content will not be tolerated.
Eugene Rochko, founder of Mastodon and admin at mastodon.social
The Gentlemen 1x05 "I've Hundreds of Cousins"
Distribution issues in Europe and a theft on the farm cause a headache for Eddie and Susie — until they make a new acquaintance who can help them out.
At some point, someone decided that vacuum cleaners were an acceptable topic on tech websites, blogs and YouTube channels and ever since then there have been way too goddam many reviews of Roombas and their kind. This is not a good thing and it needs to stop.
I asked Google Gemini how to get my API key for the service and it told me it wasn’t available for use in third-party apps. I asked Google the same thing and it gave me the URL to get my key. Really confidence inspiring, Google.
My Bookmark Workflow in 2024 using #Raindrop.io and #Obsidian
I recently found a backup of my browser bookmarks from 2009. It was a trip down memory lane looking at what i was most interested in 15 years ago (lots of cycling) and seeing what web resources are sadly no longer with us (Google+, Stumble Upon). Before browsers started syncing bookmarks I used (and paid for) Foxmarks a browser extension that synced bookmarks between different browsers. My Chrome (work) and Safari (home) bookmarks were identical. It was great. Foxmarks died when its functions were supplanted by native browser capabilities. For the next few years I relied on Chrome’s native capabilities to sync, ditching Safari. In 2022, I switched to Microsoft Edge and I’ve remained there since (on Mac, iOS and PC).
Microsoft Edge Really Doesn’t Suck | Lou Plummer (amerpie.lol)
Raindrop.io
Last year I heard about Raindrop.io for the first time in an article from Mac Automation Tips. Raindrop.io is a multi-featured bookmark manager with a web interface and native apps for Mac and PC. It allows you to add sites to your collection via a browser extension. When you add a new bookmark you can assign it to a folder, add a note, tags and set a reminder to revisit the site later (paid feature)
The free version of Raindrop.io offers enough features for may users.
- Unlimited bookmarks
- Unlimited collections
- Unlimited highlights
- Unlimited devices
- More than 2,600 integrations (via IFTTT)
- Apps for Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.
The pro version offers even more benefits. If you rely on PDFs for reference, you can upload your library to Raindrop.io’s servers and take advantage of full text search and universal availability. For regular web sites, Raindrop.io saves an archive of the page when you add it to your collection so you never have to worry about losing access to an article if it gets pulled from the Internet or disappears behind a paywall. You get daily backups. I have mine saved to Dropbox so I get a local copy of them downloaded to my computer.
Integrations I use include YouTube where every time I give a video a thumbs up it gets added to Raindrop.io. My RSS service, Inoreader, allows me to add pages directly to my bookmarks and it automates it even further by also adding starred (read later) articles as well. I also imported all my articles from Pocket and for awhile synced my bookmarks with an Evernote notebook.

Obsidian Integration
I try to make Obsidian the center of my digital life. After hacking together a workflow that involved exporting my bookmarks to Dropbox via IFTTT and then moving them to my vault with Hazel, I found a community plugin that accomplished all that for me, The Raindrop Highlights Plugin can be set to only import bookmarks where you’ve made highlights or it can import every page you add to Raindrop.io (my choice). The plugin allows you to customize your import template for the body of the note and the metadata. If you choose (recommended), it will duplicate the folder structure you’ve created for your collection. Vitally, you can import the tags you assign as you add bookmarks so that if, like me, you use tag-based MOCs (maps of content) in Obsidian, your imported bookmarks will get automatically added.
If you’d occasionally like to add the full content of a page, you can use the community plugin ReadItLater which will import a website from a URL on your clipboard. Even if you don’t import the content of the page, the clean interface of an imported bookmark note invites you to add your own commentary and to add internal links to other notes on the same topic, Obsidian’s super power.

Posted the weekly update to my /now page with shout outs to a couple of IndieWeb stalwarts, a good Netflix show, some interesting reading and other highlights from 2024-Week 11.
This Week's Bookmarks - Disney Adults, 1-Star Reviews of National Parks, Steve Job's Biggest Rival, 90's Band Name Origins, How Maps Distort the World, Printing any Web Page, Making Google Better #Links

For parents and grandparents, the Walt Disney Company is nearly inescapable, such is the corporation’s reach into American society, but for a certain sector their is a different attraction. The Disney Adult
We all agree that setting high expectations is good in some circumstances. Setting unrealistic expectations is unwise in all cases however. The article shows what happens to people who expect the wilderness to be a theme park. It’s hilarious. The best one-star reviews of national parks: ‘A giant litter box’ - The Washington Post
“Today’s businesses and technologies were not just defined by the names we remember, and in his new column, The Crazy Ones_ Gareth Edwards [tells] the stories of the forgotten men and women who thought differently and helped build the future. His latest piece demonstrates how the personal computing battles of the early 1980s—when Steve Jobs and Adam Osborne battled for supremacy—echo to today The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs’s Greatest Rival (every.to)
You need this article if you ever want to win a trivia contest. Slightly fascinating. Slightly icky. The Name Origins of 20 Famous ’90s Bands (mentalfloss.com)
Of course the white map-makers of yore found a way to minimize the impact of black and brown people and of course the trend continues today. You’ve probably never seen the true size of Africa. How Maps Distort the World
What if you want to print a webpage without the ads and photos? Paste the web address into PrintFriendly to strip out all the extras.
There’s a hidden setting that makes searches more precise. How to Make Google Show You the Good Search Results Again
The Gentlemen 1x04 "An Unsympathetic Gentleman"
Susie is keen to expand the business. Eddie is determined that it won't be on his estate, so the Hornimans search for alternative locations.
A Lovely Routine - The Digital Checklist That Brings Me Joy Every Day and The Hunt for Links

I have a digital checklist I try to complete every day. It helps me do the mundane things we all have to do, stay on top of my email, organize my notes, keep important software updated. My checklist also helps me to remember to do the fun things I enjoy: uploading a photo every day to Micro.blog where it gets cross posted to all the social media sites in which I participate. I have a reminder to check in daily at Product Hunt because I enjoy seeing what’s new in the software categories I follow. The other “fun” item I try to check off seven days a week is to find a bookmark to share.
Every Saturday morning, I get up at 4am to drink coffee and work interrupted on posting to my blog. I keep a running note all week in Obsidian where I add each day’s link. I write a short blurb for each site, download/upload a few images and post the links. My uber original name for this feature is (drumroll) This Week’s Bookmarks.
I subscribe to way too many newsletters and what keeps me interested in them is looking for the link of the day. Ironically, some of what I subscribe too are other people’s weekly link posts! I’ll share anything that looks like it might catch the eye of a curious person. It could be a story about the world’s coolest streets or something funny like the Washington Post’s collection of one-star reviews of National Parks. I rarely share news stories. I aim for something with a little shelf life. I’m a techie and a blogger so there’s plenty of stuff there for like-minded folks.
Right now, I’m keeping a running list of several week’s worth of links. One day it will get too unwieldy, and I’ll have to pare it down or start a volume two or something, but for now it’s there to explore. If you check it out and find anything useful or entertaining it would mean the world to me if you let me know.
Matthias Ott, author of the wonderful newsletter Own Your Web, wrote a piece recently about all the reasons why creating a links page is an integral part of the IndieWeb. He listed different ways to share your finds (like newsletters and RSS feeds) and he gave multiple reasons for collecting links in the first place. He’s the inspiration for this reflection.
A couple of bloggers I like have weekly links posts or newsletters. Check out the HeyDingus Seven Things This Week collection and let the writer, Jarrod Blundy know that I sent you. While you’re at it, look at Ian Betteridge’s new 10 Blue Links which he’ll be happy to email you each week.
Peace! Lou, in NC
Lou Plummer | Amerpie
Email
The Good Doctor 7x02 "Skin in the Game"
Shaun struggles to accommodate the newest member of his surgical team, Charlie, who interferes in a patient’s relationship with his daughter. Elsewhere, Park tackles a tricky brain tumor, and Lea and Morgan adjust to motherhood.
The paycheck I get every two weeks should be sufficient motivation but I gotta say when a professor or student (or fellow staff member) sincerely thanks me for solving their computing problem, I feel like I’m making a positive difference in someone’s education, and it pumps me up.
CloudHQ - Adding Functionality to Google Services: Gmail. Google Drive and Search
My Original Problem
I still have my “Welcome to Gmail” message dated February 21, 2005. When Google Drive was introduced in 2012 I adopted it as my primary cloud storage service. For some unknown reason, Google has never implemented a way to automate saving email attachments to the cloud. Once upon a time IFTTT used to have an applet that would do this for you but it’s been deprecated and no longer works. In my search for a solution, I discovered CloudHQ.
CloudHQ has over 60 Google Workspace related services, some paid, many free. My initial search led me to implement their backup and sync utility. It has the power to save all of your email to Google Drive as PDFs which was a bit overkill for my use case. All I wanted was to save attachments. The process was simple:
- First I created a label in Gmail called attachments
- Then I created a filter that applied that label to all emails addressed to me with attachments. The “addressed to me” part is important because without that emails that I send with attachments would also get included.
- The next step was to associate my Gmail account as the source for the CloudHQ app and to designate a folder in my Google Drive as the destination for the saved files.
But What About…
I found that occasionally I do actually have a need to save an email as a PDF. I could of course use a print to PDF option but it’s much easier to use the CloudHQ utility Save Emails to Google Drive.Once installed this utility adds a button to your Gmail web interface that allows for one click saving of an email. It creates a link to the email on the fly and asks if you want to save it to your clipboard. I find it particularly useful for receipts that I want to add to Evernote.
A Useful AI Tool
In exploring the CloudHQ catalog, I discovered their browser plugin for Chromium browsers that integrates ChatGPT into every search.

It’s a real time saver, offering both a traditional Google search along with a comprehensive AI query. You get both on the same page any time you conduct a search. By default it uses ChatGPT 3.5 but you can provide your own API key and use ChatGPT 4 if you desire. For most searches I find that v3.5 is sufficient (and cheaper).
More
The variety of services offered by CloudHQ is extensive and are not limited to Google Workspace products. They offer Microsoft Office 365 tools as well as solutions for use with Dropbox for Business and Box. I haven’t used those but there is extensive information on their web site. Since I’m a Gmail user I intend to explore some of the plugins CloudHQ offers, including:
- Free Email Tracker
- Gmail YouTube
- Free Video Email for Gmail

The Scarlet-faced Liocichla, native to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and southern China. #Birds #Photography
I used ChatGPT to craft a Python script today that edited 500+ markdown files (my imported Raindrop.io bookmarks) from my #Obsidian vault. It moved text in the form of an inline properties field for URLs from the body of the note into the YAML front matter. I knew next to nothing about #Python.
Shōgun 1x04 "The Eightfold Fence"
Blackthorne and Mariko test their new alliance as they train Toranaga's gun regiment for war. Yabushige must navigate his past promises to Ishido when an old friend comes to the village.
App of the Day is Clipboard Fusion - Syncs your clipboard between your Mac, PC and phone, iPhone or Android. Allows for saved clipboards for frequently used text. I keep my OpenAI api key on mine. It’s a real solution if your work OS is different than your home OS.
Window to the past. Think of the conversations held around that table. McDougald Road, Mamers, NC #photography
Enjoying The Gentlemen on Netflix 1) Because it’s a well done piece of dark British comedy and 2) I don’t have to wait a week to see new episodes like a barbarian from the 70s. #television
The Gentlemen 1x03 "Where's My Weed At?"
Jimmy gets distracted on the job. As supply chain issues delay deliveries, the Horniman brothers take a risky ride to placate a dissatisfied customer.
List 10 albums that have stayed with you over the years in some way. Don't take too long on the list - just a few minutes. These don't have to be great records, or critical darlings, just ones that mean something to you personally.
-
The River - Bruce Springsteen
-
Who Are You - The Who
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Graceland - Paul Simon
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Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads
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Automatic for the People - REM
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Other Voices, Other Rooms - Nanci Griffith
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Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo
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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
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Sweet Baby James - James Taylor
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Back in Black - AC/DC
Today and tomorrow only - price reduced software at the Indie App Sale - My purchases: Audracity, Nametag, Photoscope, Evo, Logger, Mastowatch, Presets, Relog
The Gentlemen 1x02 "Tackle Tommy Woo Woo"
The toffs and their gamekeeper hunt a new kind of prey. Susie enlists some help to clean up the mess, and Halstead Manor is blessed with a holy visitor.
I just visited a website.
The top half was a popup about GDPR.
The rest of it was a popup about cookie consent.
When I cleared both of those I got a popup about a newsletter.
When I cleared that I got a popup about an offer.
When I cleared that I got half an article then a paywall.
The internet, 2024.
For any users of the Little Snitch firewall program on Mac. I just found a terrific blocklist via Reddit for 135K sites with trackers, malware, etc. You can subscribe and have it updated daily via the dev’s page on Github #security
Watched The Gentlemen, S1E1 by Guy Ritchie on Netflix. After being in the heart of darkness for weeks with True Detective, Criminal Record and Shogun, it’s good to have something a little lighter to take the edge off. #Television
The Gentlemen 1x08 "The Gospel According to Bobby Glass"
A familiar face returns to settle a score with Freddy. Bobby decides it's time to retire and wants Eddie and Susie to make the necessary arrangements.
FreeTube is a YouTube client for Windows, Mac, and Linux built around using YouTube more privately. You can enjoy your favorite content and creators without your habits being tracked. All of your user data is stored locally and never sent or published to the internet. FreeTube grabs data by scraping the information it needs (with either local methods or by optionally utilizing the Invidious API). With many features similar to YouTube, FreeTube has become one of the best methods to watch YouTube privately on desktop.
Freetube - The best ad-free YouTube experience.
How to Ruin Your Web Page (My advice circa 1997 to other GeoCities Webmasters) - A Blast From the Past
I wrote this 27 years ago in the midst of the first blogging boom on the brand new Internet. Since then the skill of the average blogger has long since passed me by. I've only been back in the game for a couple of months, but back then I thought I new something. If you're old like me and have been around awhile, maybe this will spark a few memories.
```<br>
I am certainly no expert when it comes to designing web pages. I created my very first one In August of 1997, less than a month ago as of this writing. Still, I am an old timer when it comes to the online world. I've been surfing in some form or fashion for nearly f-o-u-r years. Read'em and weep, you neophyte newbie wannabes! Actually I don't mean that at all. I encourage all sorts of people to take part in the online world. I even want my own sacred mother to hook up her modem. I couldn't bear to think of anyone calling her names, so I take it back. I shall reserve my venom for those experienced web creators who insist on committing the following sins.
1. Having a nice piece of HTML displayed on your page BECAUSE you typed the code wrong and then didn't proofread it before you uploaded it on your server.
2. Displaying the message "Please be patient, this page is graphics intensive, BUT, I've been told that it's worth it!" Oh yeah, told by who…your Mom and Grandma? No one wants to wait for Carter to get re-elected while waiting for your page to load, even if you are giving directions to the fountain of youth!.
3. Hogging MY bandwidth because your vanity makes you display all of your awards on you opening page. If I ever win any awards (HA!) I promise to create a separate page to display them. That way I can give Grandma and Mom the address…and tell them how to get their browser to open to that very page.
4. Let's see a show of hands. Who really likes those embedded midi files?
5. Please look up spell checker in the dictionary!
6. Why is your page too wide for my screen and why do you think I'm going to adjust my monitor just to look at it? I like the way my monitor is set, NOW. That's why I have it that way. Do you really think Mom and Grandma know how to change their resolution and colors?
7. If you make a cheesy site, at least add your cheesy address so we can flame you for your efforts.
I love the Internet and I love milestones. Reddit is still one of the most informative sites on the Internet despite the knuckleheads there among the users and management. Today, my Reddit account is old enough to vote. Happy Cake Day To Me!
This Week's #Bookmarks: Free PDF tools, Alexa safety, online museums, amazing photos, emoji news and an RSS family tree

Bookmarks for Week 10 of 2024
Maybe you need this I don’t know. We all have phones these days with voice assistants and may of us have one or more additional devices in our homes. They are fun to query but be careful. Take the advice in this article. 7 things you should never ask Siri, Google Assistant or Alexa (komando.com)
If you are the kind of person who doesn’t just accept the default font in your apps and documents, it would pay to learn a little bit about different typefaces. This informative page is a good place to start. Fonts and Typology Infographic | (dailyinfographic.com)
My son is a self-taught art lover who often travels just to visit museums in places like NYC and Boston. I sent him this web site so he could preview some of the places he plans to travel to. 50+ virtual museums you can visit online for free (komando.com)
An amateur photographer myself, I quite enjoyed this series. James Lucas on X: “Photographs taken in the right place at the right time, intentionally or by chance
I work in IT support and one of the chores I have that is 100% not my favorite is installing Adobe Acrobat Professional for people who I just know aren’t going to realize the full value of it. I wish I could just send them this bookmark instead. iLovePDF | Online PDF tools for PDF lovers
I confess to sending way too few emojis to fit into 21st century life. I may be a grumpy old man. Still, I’m not above learning something new. Heart Emoji Meanings | Later
My Inoreader subscription for RSS feeds is one of the best tech investments I make each year. Getting into blogging and the whole IndieWeb scene has been a real blessing. This site helps me discover new feeds to follow by making a family tree of sorts from my Mastodon account and revealing all of the RSS feeds available to me from the people I follow. RsS iS dEaD LOL (rss-is-dead.lol)
It’s Saturday and my /now page is updated with American and British journalists, a tale from 17th century Japan, iOS and #Obsidian news and a tasty sandwich. What’s up now
Shōgun 1x03 "Tomorrow Is Tomorrow"
After Blackthorne survives a brazen assassination attempt, Toranaga realizes he must ferry his allies out of Osaka or risk certain defeat.
The #iOS Apps I Use Every Day - Broken Down by Time of Day and Purpose

Early AM
- Things 3 (Task management)
- Ivory for Mastodon (social media)
- Product Hunt (Because I’m a software junkie)
- Obsidian (Inbox app, used for daily journal and logging)
- Day One (journal app)
- Yahoo Mail (newsletter subscriptions only)
- Facebook (mostly for family stuff)
- Carrot Weather
Work
- Outlook (work email and calendar)
- Paycom (payroll program)
- Duo Mobile (two-factor authentication)
- Microsoft Authenticator (more two-factor authentication)
- Microsoft Edge (browser of choice and search app)
- Clipboard Fusion (shared clipboard with PC)
- Jira (IT ticket system my dept. uses)
Utilities
- Drafts (rapid text capture and processing)
- Launch Center Pro (launches actions through URL workflows)
- Messages
- Launcher (widgets on my home page)
- Shortcuts (some automated)
- PastePal (shared clipboard with personal Mac)
- Camera++ (taking and editing photos)
- Lastpass (password manager)
News, Social Media and Entertainment
- Threads (social media)
- Blue Sky (social media)
- Vernissage (for PixelFed)
- Reddit (social media)
- Inoreader (for RSS)
- Google News
- Micro.blog (social media)
- Watcht (Trakkt app for TV)
Cause the technology is just gonna get better and better and it’s gonna get easier and easier and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable to sit alone with images on a screen given to us by people who do not love us but want our money and that’s fine in low doses but if it’s the basic main staple of your diet you’re gonna die.
David Foster Wallace
White Mountains Sunset from Lake in the Clouds Hut, near Mt. Washington, NH on the Appalachian Trail #Photography #Hiking
Shōgun 1x02 "Servants of Two Masters"
Blackthorne's arrival in Osaka stirs up a hornet's nest of rivalries. Mariko is trapped between her cause and her faith when she must translate for the barbarian in Lord Toranaga's custody.
Mac People - I am mostly keyboard centric when it comes to launching and accessing apps but there are times when using the dock is just unavoidable. I’ve been using Ubar but it’s buggy. Just downloaded SpeedDock which is supposed to be like the late great DragThing. Anyone got any more suggestions?
For any #Raycast Pro subscribers - there is a new release out today with some significant improvements to the AI features. [Raycast Change Log](www.raycast.com/changelog…
Shōgun 1x01 "Anjin"
Destinies converge in Japan after a barbarian ship washes ashore in a poor fishing village. Meanwhile, in Osaka, Lord Toranaga finds himself outplayed by his enemies.
Shōgun 1x02 "Servants of Two Masters"
Blackthorne's arrival in Osaka stirs up a hornet's nest of rivalries. Mariko is trapped between her cause and her faith when she must translate for the barbarian in Lord Toranaga's custody.
Shōgun 1x03 "Tomorrow Is Tomorrow"
After Blackthorne survives a brazen assassination attempt, Toranaga realizes he must ferry his allies out of Osaka or risk certain defeat.
My Dataview Use Cases in #Obsidian
One of the most downloaded community plugins in the Obsidian universe is Dataview. It allows you to treat you vault as a searchable, queryable database. Using the file properties and inline fields you can use Dataview Query Language (DQL) to ask questions of your vault. I use Things 3 for task management, so I don’t use Dataview to manage my todo list as many people do, but I do use it in for a number of other purposes.
Help Building Queries
There is a free tool you can use to help with the learning curve with Dataview. “The Basic Dataview Query Builder will guide you through some questions and put together a Dataview query based on your answers. You can use this query as-is in your vault or as a starting point to refine a more advanced query.
The goal is to help you on your first Dataview queries and to give you a better understanding of the syntax and needed information to build Dataview queries from scratch.”
Daily Note Template
I have two Dataview queries in my Daily Note template. I have them formatted as callouts so that I can fold them up when I don’t need to see the information and therefore don’t have to do a lot of scrolling around.
The first callout shows me the notes created on the same date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's New Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date ```
The second callout shows me the notes modified on the date the daily note was created.
[!abstract]Today's Modified Notes ```dataview LIST WHERE modification-date = this.modification-date ```
They appear like this in the note.

Maps of Content Based on Tags
I have a folder of notes in my vault I call Meta. These are notes about other notes. Several of these contain a map of content (MOC) for my areas of interest. One of these contains my notes an a Mac automation program I use and that I study to improve my scripting skills, Keyboard Maestro. The Dataview query for a tag-based note looks like this:
```dataview
LIST
FROM #KeyboardMaestro
SORT file.name ASC
```
Speaking of Tags
I use tags extensively in my vault. One of my meta notes is a clickable list of all the tags I have. It’s like the tags pane in the Obsidian interface except it’s in note form. I can edit it easily enough so that It only shows me the notes from a certain folder if I want. The Dataview query for that notes looks like this.
```dataview
LIST length(rows)
WHERE tags
FLATTEN file.tags as tags
GROUP BY tags
SORT key asc
```
The result is a list with the number of notes with that tag and a clickable link that will open a list of notes in the left pane.

A Table with URLs
Dataview lets you create tables with multiple columns as well as lists. I user URL as a field in my properties for several categories of notes. Since I’m relatively new to Obsidian, I have a lot of notes on different workflows and plugins. Once again, I have a meta note that contains not only links to my notes, but also links to the web pages where the information came from. The query is formulated like this :
```dataview
TABLE url
FROM Obsidian
SORT file.name ASC
```
The result is:

A Little More Complex
I work at a small private university. My role there causes me to interact with everyone on staff as well as the faculty and administration. I have a note for each person with details of out meetings and interactions. I also have notes in my vault for plenty of other people to include writers, vendors, my family and more. I need a MOC just for work though and the following query returns the information for people (criteria 1) who work at my university (criteria 2) and their role (criteria 3).
```dataview
LIST role
FROM #people
WHERE org = "MU"
SORT file.name ASC
```
The result is

Special Cases
Not all my meta notes contain links to other notes. I have an collection of over 500 quotes in my vault. Some of them are from an app on my phone. others have been imported from other people’s vaults and some have been added one at the time since i started using Obsidian. One of the fields in the metadata is Topics: which I use instead of tags so as not to clutter up my tags database. Because I have notes from so many different sources, the topics field was a mess with different capitalization rules, punctuation etc. I needed a way to list all of the topics so that I could use a text editor to do a search and replace across my vault to standardize things. The user holroy on the Obsidian.md forum wrote the following query for me.
```dataview
LIST length(rows)
FROM "Quotes"
WHERE topics
FLATTEN topics as topic
GROUP BY topic
SORT key asc
```
The results:

See all my Obsidian Tips
Looks like the transcript feature for Apple Podcasts is working for some older episodes. I tested it on a recent edition of Mac Power Users.
All the Apple fanboys (#NotASlur) wishing they lived in the EU today so they could take advantage of the new features in iOS 17.4.
One of my favorite things about having a blog is the daily search for a link to share in my weekly bookmarks post that I put together on Saturday mornings over a cup of coffee. I try to find a link every day and I keep a note open in #Obsidian to collect the info. It gives my web surfing a purpose.
Life & Beth 2x10 "Road to Nowhere"
Beth and John return home from a trip upstate and attend Jen’s surprise birthday party, which turns out to be more surprising than expected. Beth reaches out to Ann during what may be the most pivotal time in Beth’s life.
Life & Beth 2x09 "Toxic"
Beth is there for Jess in a time of need. Reflecting on her past, Beth realizes what she needs from John in order to feel safe again.
Trying not to regret my December purchase of an M2 #MacBook Air now that the M3s are out for the same price. The M2 may be the best laptop I’ve ever used.
Life & Beth 2x08 "Shower Sex"
John takes it upon himself to remodel the house, making a construction site of their home. Beth feels more and more isolated both by the mess and by John’s complete absorption into his various projects.
Life & Beth 2x07 "That's What Friends Are For"
After life gets in the way, Beth realizes she hasn’t spent much time with her friends. She plans a get together for Maya, Jen, and Jess at the vineyard and the women realize they’ve missed a lot in their months of separation.
I don’t see the cool kids (outside of Reddit) talking about #Raycast much. I used Launchbar for years and enthusiastically switched last November. Raycast just does so much: AI interface, image conversion, translation, posting to social media, emoji picking etc. Why do the intelligentsia reject it?
All the Ways to Get Web Content Into #Obsidian

Many of us were introduced to note-taking apps by the once great but now diminished Evernote who’s web clipper helped move it to the forefront of productivity apps. The web clipper exists as a browser extension to capture whole web pages, snippets, simplified articles or just links. It’s pretty versatile. It’s made by Evernote’s developers and using it is included in your subscription price. Obsidian, on the other hand, doesn’t have any native wen capturing capability. But, that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to get web content into your vault. It’s quite the opposite. There are almost too many way to do it.
The Bookmarklet
Steph Ango, the CEO at Obsidian makes a bookmarklet available for free - (Obsidian Web Clipper Bookmarklet to save articles and pages from the web (for Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and mobile browsers) (github.com)). He even has a link to a Bookmarklet Maker (caiorss.github.io)if you want to customize his work. I’ve had problems getting this to work on some web pages with some browsers so it’s not my preferred method.
Browser Extensions
A search of your favorite browser’s extension store will offer you several choices in Obsidian web clipping. My experience has been that the extensions are kind of flaky and don’t work all that well with one exception. The MarkDownload - Markdown Web Clipper saves web pages as markdown files wherever you tell it to. For the purpose of Obsidian, all you have to do is choose a location inside your vault. I use it on a PC and a Mac with no problems.
The Mobile Experience
I usea shortcut I wrote to capture web content on my iPhone and iPad. You are welcome to edit and improve it if you want. It’s available on Routine Hub and requires the companion app for IOS called Actions for Obsidian.. I like using it because it works regardless of the mobile browser you use and it contains a link back to the original page if you like to include that info in your file properties like I do.
Community Plugins
The best community plugins for importing web content are ReadItLater, which imports from a Url on your clipboard directly into your vault using templates depending on the type of link: YouTube, Mastodon, Wikipedia, etc. Just run a command from the palette and you have a new note.
Another easy to use plugin is Extract Url Content which scrapes web pages based on a link you have highlighted in an existing note. Again, all it takes is a single command to run it.
The final plugin I’ll recommend is the Obsidian Gem of the Year for 2023, Omnivore. By default it only imports links and highlights but you can edit your template to make it import entire articles from the free read it later service. You can even filter out certain forms of content if you don’t want ti import them. I wrote a full set of instructions, including templates on using this plugin.
Hopefully you now have a full toolset to make your web based note taking easier!
See all my Obsidian Tips
It’s Saturday morning and that means it’s time for an updated /now page. This week I share a couple of articles on BlueSky and Amazon. I comment on Life & Beth, the Hulu show. I post links to a couple of my recent blog posts and I share two newsletters I’ve found to be worth the space in my inbox.
This Weeks Bookmarks: Photos from History, Infinite Mac, Amazon Secrets, YouTube Summarizer, Streaming Service Survival Guide, Old Software

List of photographs considered the most important - Wikipedia - Be prepared to stay down this rabbit hole for awhile if you have any interest in photography or history.
Infinite Mac is a collection of classic Macintosh system releases and software, all easily accessible from the comfort of a (modern) web browser.
Pick any version of System Software/Mac OS from the 1980s or 1990s and run it (and major software of that era) within a virtual machine. You can also run a custom version with your choice of machine and virtual disks. Files can be imported and exported using drag and drop, and System 7 and onward have more advanced integrations as well – refer to the welcome screen in each machine for more details.
As a person in recovery for the last 15 years, I don’t have to come up with euphemisms to describe my state of existence any more, but if I did, this list would come in handy. Can any English word be turned into a synonym for “drunk”? Not all, but many can. | Ars Technica
Gone are the days when you could just subscribe willy nilly to every channel. There’s a bewildering number of choices when cord-cutting and building your own package. NPR made this easy guide to doing ot right. It will help you see what you want to see at the cheapest price. Streaming services guide: Here’s how to choose what’s right for you : NPR
This is a labor of love by a bunch of software geeks. If you have an old system you’re trying to put back into use, this is an invaluable site for finding compatible software. Old versions of Windows, Mac and Linux Software, Apps & Abandonware Games - Download at OldVersion.com
So just how does Jeff Bezos make eight million dollars an hour (or whatever the obscene number actually is)? This article reveals a few facts about Amazon that most of us have no idea about. Amazon’s Big Secret - The Atlantic
The ultimate YouTube companion for transcripts, summaries and outlines. It’s free for videos under an hour, up to 20 per day with cheap plans if you want longer videos or need to process more than 20. Summarize.ing - Instant YouTube Video Summaries | AI-Powered Content Digests
A quick glance through this list shows us all how much we don’t know (and will never know). 16 Historical Mysteries People Say Will Never Be Solved (didyouknowfacts.com)
Friday nights are for relaxed research so I can get up early on Saturday morning, make coffee and write. I love being on the Indieweb where creating things is something we do together. Looking forward to what y’all come up with this weekend.
Life & Beth 2x06 "The Work"
Beth accompanies her true-crime-lover sister, Ann, to the Dupree Murder House. During the reenactment, the sisters reveal too much about themselves to one another and the other guests. Beth lets down Maya in an possibly unforgivable way.
Life & Beth 2x05 "Claire"
Matt leans on Beth when something from his past catches up with him and makes him reevaluate his life.
I was today years old when I found out you can install fonts on an iPhone. Now I can use my beloved Atkinson Hyperlegible and JetBrains Mono in #Obsidian on mobile just like I do on my MacBook and Windows box. I use a free app called Fontcase I heard about from Mac Power Users.
Life & Beth 2x04 "This Soup Is Gonna Be Good"
Beth and John look for a therapist that can help them with the communication problems that are cropping up in their relationship. We visit younger John and put some missing pieces together.
Life & Beth 2x03 "Nothing Can Get Me Down"
Beth, John, and their friends wake up from a raucous night in NOLA and spend the day trying to recover. After meeting LaVar and Denisha’s son, Beth has a realization about John that will forever change them.
Jon Stewart says goodbye to his dog. See if you can get through this without crying. I could not. Goodbye Dipper
A picture of the wonderful melting pot that still is America from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC #StreetPhotography
I’m still getting value here, even though I’m all in on #Obsidian, but damn, that’s a lot of dough for a note taking app. If it weren’t for the IFTTT integration and the mailto:Evernote functionality for HTML messages I’d be gone.
Life & Beth 2x02 "Who Dat?"
Beth, John, and friends visit New Orleans. Beth meets an old friend of John’s who deepens their appreciation for the city and one another. Her friends start down some dark paths they didn’t foresee.
Life & Beth 2x01 "Trust Me"
Beth begs off work and meets her friends at Maya’s new fancy spa gig in Manhattan. She revisits her first love. Later that night, Beth and John meet for a highly anticipated date that takes a surprise turn.
I’m in love with the Image Modification plugin for #Raycast. Apply filters and transformations to various image formats and convert between them. Create new images by specifying their dimensions, colors, and patterns. Operate on selected files or on images on the clipboard. I use it every day.
Me and my 18-year old Reddit account just got invited to the Reddit IPO at the preferred price so y’all look at the landed gentry over here. LOL
Attachment Management Made Easy in #Obsidian; A Workflow
Downloading Web Content
A question I see frequently on Reddit and other Obsidian community hubs regards importing web pages and managing the images they contain. There are many different ways of importing web pages into Obsidian, ranging from iOS shortcuts, theOmnivore read it later service, and plugins such as Extract URL Content. For the purpose of this workflow, I suggest using the ReadItLater plugin which imports markdown versions of webpages using different templates depending on the content: YouTube, Mastodon posts etc. This plugin scrapes the URL from your clipboard and creates a new note in your default location.
Downloading Images
The second step in this workflow is importing the images and this is accomplished with the plugin Local Images Plus. It’s features include:
- Downloading media files from copied/pasted content of web pages
- Localizing media files from copied/pasted content of word / Open Office documents
- Downloading files embedded in markdown tags from web to vault
- Saving base64 embedded images to vault
- Converting PNG images to JPEG images with various quality
- Attachments de-duplication by using MD5 hashing algorithm
- Removing orphaned attachments from vault
Managing Images
The final step in the workflow is accomplished with the Attachment Management plugin. This plugin will consolidate your attachments in a file structure you choose. I use a separate folder for all attachments and this plugin creates subfolders using the local file path and note title. It renames the image using configurable variables. I use a date and time stamp followed by the note name. You can exclude folders from being organized if you don’t want to manage the included notes. I use this to exclude the folder where I compose blog posts so that it doesn’t interfere with the images I’ve uploaded to my CMS.
Final Tips
I use the excellent Commander plugin to add buttons to my ribbon bar for the image management part of the workflow. Since this workflow can manage your existing notes as well as new notes, you’ll want to clean up all your empty resource folders if you choose to consolidate your images into a central folder. As always, before you run any command that affects your entire vault, make sure you have a good backup in case something goes haywire. (Backup Tips)
See all my Obsidian Tips
There is something poetic about a picture of Obama in B&W if you know what I mean. Anyway, street vendor, NYC, 2015.
I want my main Mastodon feed to be composed of the real people I follow. I’m unfollowing media accounts, preferring to get my news via RSS. I might open a second Mastodon account just for breaking news but I want to emphasize the SOCIAL part of social media. How do you do it?
Life & Beth 1x10 "Kiss from a Rose"
Beth decides she can’t waste any more time on regrets. She makes a plan to move forward, cut some old ties, and forgive.
Life & Beth 1x09 "MRI"
Beth gets an MRI to find the source of her back pain and, while inside, she reflects on her tumultuous childhood.
If you search for Microsoft Authenticator in the #iOS app store, the top hit is a $40 paid app. The second hit is the actual Microsoft (free) product. This causes IT departments problems every week of every year and is a total dick move on the part of #Apple.
I compiled all my #Obsidian articles onto one page. There’s info on backing up your vault, complementary software, emailing to Obsidian, using Templater, syncing Omnivore, metadata management, Dataview and vault composition.
He was playing with Lego during Y2K, ruminations of an old timer
We hired a new network engineer at the university where I work. This is my semi-retired job. I had an IT career in public education and retired in 2020 but found that I wasn’t ready to stay home all the time. I found this gig doing stuff I did 20 years ago - handing out laptops, solving printer issues, answering the phone. I didn’t want any pressure and the job suits me fine. I don’t need or want to be in charge of anything. The money is really good for what is asked of me plus I have my pension. I was talking to the new engineer, who to be truthful has a wee bit of a superiority complex and I mentioned what I was doing in IT during the Y2K period - working for a bank. He told me he was playing with Legos during that time. I don’t know if he intended to make me feel old (I’m almost 60) but he did. I wasn’t trying to make him feel callow, just telling a story. Anyway, I gotta get my head wrapped around aggressive go-getters with something to prove. I just want to stay out of his way and do my thing. Why do men have to make every goddamn thing a competition? I still love computers after spending all these years with them. I enjoy technology and the last thing I want to do is compete with someone younger than my children over who can write the best powershell script or configure a Cisco switch in the least amount of time. I’d rather talk about how much I enjoy using Obsidian or how insanely long my MacBook battery lasts. Something fun. Don’t suck the joy out anyone’s work life, y’all. Just don’t do it.
Life & Beth 1x08 "Homegoing"
A newly unemployed Beth helps John at the farmers’ market. She and John attend a funeral, which makes Beth reevaluate a lot of things in her own life.
Life & Beth 1x07 "Leonard"
Ann helps Beth move the last of her things out of her and Matt’s apartment. Beth enlists her father’s help in wining and dining a big client.
Just getting around to watching Life & Beth on Hulu with Amy Schumer and Michael Cera. It’s comfort TV but not too comfortable as it raises some pertinent questions about life in the 21st century. Definitely recommend.
The Good Doctor 7x01 "Baby, Baby, Baby"
Shaun and Lea adjust to parenthood as they debate the importance of schedule and routine for Steve. Meanwhile, Shaun takes on his first case back at the hospital with two baby patients in need of the same heart.
A rainbow lorikeet. native to eastern and southern Australia, as well as southern New Guinea and Tasmania.
Life & Beth 1x05 "Fair"
Beth spends more time with John at the vineyard and tags along with him to the annual fair. There, she has an awkward run in with a childhood friend.
Updated my /Now Page with some info on a good newsletter, a new to me TV show a couple of blog posts and some pretty high quality training videos I’ve been taking in preparation for a Microsoft certification exam.
This Week's Bookmarks: Disk shopping, Industry secrets, No more rice, Things unexpectedly named after people, NOT the world's oldest dog, AI tips
Disk Prices is a bare-bones, text-only website lists the prices of hard drives, solid-state drives, and USB drives available on Amazon. It’s a superior way to search for storage compared to searching directly on Amazon.
Reddit thread on industry secrets - Get the inside scoop on the dirty inside knowledge froma range of industries – if you dare. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!

Apple said in a new post - If your phone gets wet, don’t put it in rice. Instead, tap your iPhone against your hand with the connector facing down to let the liquid drip out, then leave it in a dry area, The company warned that small particles of rice can damage your phone.
Things Unexpectedly Named After People - German Chocolate Cake has nothing to do with a certain European country…and more.
The world’s oldest dog was posthumously stripped of his title after the Guinness World Records could not prove he was 30 years old at the time of his death.
17 tips to improve your ChatGPT prompts from Lifehacker. a better than average guide to getting the most from AI.
Life & Beth 1x04 "Pancakes"
Beth’s friends encourage her to get back into the hookup game now that she’s back on the Island, but Beth has formed a crush on a farmer at the vineyard she now reps.
Life & Beth 1x03 "Out on the Island"
After her breakup, Beth decides to leave Manhattan and head back to Long Island, at least for now. To make it work, she takes on a very “Long Island” Long Island vineyard as a client.
Not to try and make anyone feel old, but the movie Office Space was released 25 years ago this week. Making people feel nostalgic for cubicles.
Just read where Tiago Forte, the Second Brain Guy, rejected #Obsidian, Tana and Mem in favor of sticking with Evernote. I don’t think he’s much of a techie in real life and the learning curve intimidated him.
Criminal Record 1x08 "Carla"
A wave of public outrage pushes Hegarty and June to work together before it's too late.
Obsidian Great but Not Perfect- Complementary Software for PKM #Obsidian

Obsidian: Awesome, Yet Imperfect
I’m a big fan of Obsidian for note-taking. It’s built around plain text, the ultimate in portability. Still, even the best tools have their limits. Obsidian’s features can sometimes differ across platforms – you’ll find certain limitations on mobile that you won’t face on desktop, and vice versa. Thankfully, there are other great apps out there to complement Obsidian and boost its power.

Enhancing Your Desktop Experience
Last week I tackled a major metadata cleanup project in my quote collection. I use a “topics” property similar to tags, and let’s just say it needed some love. My collection has a mix of sources, and the topics were inconsistent – no capitalization rules, long strings without separation, you name it. Desktop text editors to the rescue! I used Notepad++ (PC) and BBedit (Mac) for multi-file search and replace. They’re both fast, handle case-matching, and the basic features are free.

Backup paranoia? Me too! On top of Obsidian’s built-in versioning (a must-have), I backup the whole vault to my Mac’s Time Machine, keep a versioned copy on GitHub using the Obsidian Git plugin, and sync a local copy to both my PC and Mac with automatic Google Drive uploads. For local sync, I rely on Sync Folders Pro (Mac) for its nightly auto-sync, plus Free File Sync (Mac/PC) for occasional manual backups.
More information on automating Obsidian backups
Speaking of organization, I’ve dabbled with EagleFiler and Devonthink on my Mac. These knowledge management apps index my Obsidian vault alongside years of Gmail, Facebook, Evernote, tons of PDFs… you get the idea. They keep my main vault lean while giving me powerful search across all my data.
Obsidian Power-Ups for Mobile

Obsidian’s mobile app has one major weakness: slow load times. While the developers are working on it, immediate data entry just isn’t its strength yet. Upgraded phone or not, I still experience lag. My workaround is the brilliant iOS app Drafts. It’s a lightning-fast text capture tool, has great Markdown support, and with a tap you can send everything to Obsidian (even from desktop!).
Other amazing text editors pair perfectly with Obsidian. iA Writer is a minimalist’s dream. It strips away distractions for pure writing focus, especially when it comes to Markdown. You can work directly on your vault without even opening the Obsidian app. 1Writer is another fantastic, more budget-friendly option that handles plain text and Markdown beautifully.
Let me know what you think!
See all my Obsidian Tips
Looking for tips and advice. I just installed #Devonthink and imported my Raindrop.io bookmarks and my #Obsidian vault. What’s next? What’s the best way to get the most use out it? What all can it do for me? Does it work well with PDFs? Is importing Gmail a possibility? Total newb on this one. #PKM
Gotta give good ol' #BBedit a shout out tonight for doing multiple search and replace operations across hundreds of markdown files in my #Obsidian vault. It was fast and flawless and something the native app can’t do alone. If you’re riding the plain text wave, you need a copy or Notepad++ for PCs.
Installed Reor today, an easy to add front-end for a local LLM running on my Macbook. Reor uses my #Obsidian vault as a knowledge base and all queries are processed on my computer. It writes notes in MD right back into my vault and can even choose where to file them - been wanting to try this.
I’m not saying my #Obsidian daily note template looks as tricked out as my 2004 My Space page, but Weird Al thinks it does.
Here’s an update on what I’ve been up to this week - what I’m reading, watching, making and enjoying. My Now Page
This Week's Bookmarks: Mixtapes, A History Game, Internet Museum, a Recipe, Article of the Week, Mastodon Hacking and a Newsletter
Mixtape Garden
[Mixtape Garden](mixtape garden
Mixtape Garden is a site for making mixtapes together! Here’s how to use it:
- Make an account and log in
- Make a new mixtape
- You and other users add seven YouTube videos to the mixtape
Once it’s full, your mixtape will be automatically converted into a single, crossfaded mp3 that can be streamed or downloaded!
Milestone Archive - The History of the Web

Milestones Archive - The History of the Web,
An interactive timeline dating back to the late 80’s of all the milestones that make the Internet what it is today. If you are of a certain age, depending on when you started paying attention, you may remember everything.
Comeback Sauce

Comeback Sauce Recipe - Budget Bytes,
A delicious sauce you can make at home using a few common ingredients. It was good on Superbowl Sunday, it’ll be good at your house.
Time Guesser - A Photo Game

This game shows you a photo from history, and you have to guess where and when it was taken. <timeguessr.com>
The Text File That Runs the Internet

David Pierce, the excellent and oft quoted writer from The Verge wrote the story of the week about the robots.txt file and how AI companies are ignoring it, breaking a strong tradition that search companies have long followed..
RSS Parrot

A link from Cory Doctorow, the King of the Internet, RSS Parrot (rss-parrot.net)
Weeklypedia Newsletter

A fascinating look at what peoiple around the world are learning about this week. Weeklypedia (hatnote.com)
What's In My #Obsidian Vault - Info on Plugins, Workflows, Tags and Philosophies on #PKM
A curious Redditor asked me to explain my vault structure to him and I obliged, such is the nature of most people in the Obsidian community. There’s info on plugins I use for certain workflows and links to a couple of tutorials I’ve written on how some elements are structured and used. I put enough effort into it that I thought I’d let it serve a double purpose as blog entry and here we are. Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments. Contact info is in links at the bottom of the post.
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-Inbox - The default folder for all new notes added to the system through plugins, scripts and shortcuts, named that way to move it to the top my my folder list. I could have used a numbering system on my folders like all the cool kids do, but I stuck with old habits carried over from 16 years of Evernote use. This is subject to change.
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Lounotes - My folder for personal reference material
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Apple Notes - I periodically import my Apple Notes into Obsidian to keep all my info in a central location.
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Blogging - Research material, rough and final drafts of posts to this blog (in a subfolder)
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Classes- A folder used by the Metadata Menu Plugin
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Contacts - Notes created via a shortcut built with Actions for Obsidian that imported my iOS address book into Obsidian so I could have notes for all the people in my life (outside of work)
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Journal - My daily notes divided into subfolders for months and years
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Select Email - I have a workflow that allows me to send email to my Obsidian vault - Details.
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Pocket - Pockets is a free read-it-later service. I use a plugin to automatically get the articles into my Obsidian vault. I triage what’s there in the evenings and add tags, links and highlights for stuff I am going to keep.
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People - I use a template that includes a space to track meetings and phone calls with different folks at work. I also use this folder for notes on my favorite content creators, whose pages include a dataview query based on the Author: field in properties to make a MOC of all their work I’ve quoted in my vault.
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Web Clips - These are entire web pages I download using either the Obsidian Webclipper.
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Quotes - I have a collection of over 500 notes of nothing but quotes. Each note is named for a speaker/writer and the properties contain info on the source and topic of the quote. I used a python script I found to import my previous collection from a CSV file into Obsidian as markdown files. If you are interested, you can browse the collection on GitHub or download the whole archive.
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Bookmarks - I use a plugin to automatically sync my bookmarks From Raindrop.iowith my Obsidian vault. Any page I bookmark goes into this folder, where I can add links and MOCs.
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RSS - I use the RSS Copyist plugin to import my watched TV shows and movies from Trakt, my books from Goodreads and my music from Last.fm.
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Serials - I have a lot of software. A lot. I’m a sucker for those sales at Bundlehunt and App Sumo. I have serial numbers and registration info for all that I own.
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Tech Notes - These are heavily cross-referenced notes on all things IT related (outside of work) that I’m interested. It’s a mix of info from the web and my own notes.
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Templates - I have a few heavily customized templates with Templater snippets and custom metadata (including tags) for my Inbox, People, Quotes and Bookmark folders
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Weekly Notes - Named so that they’ll appear chronologically, these are created via the Periodic Notes Plugin
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zz-attachments - This is the folder where all the attachments (images, PDFs, audio and video) live. They are arranged and renamed automatically by the Attachment Management Plugin
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zz-meta - These are notes about notes, similar to the MOC concept where I have custom dataview queries for different categories of quotes, notes on certain topics and notes from select periods of time.
See all my Obsidian Tips
My entire working life in IT has been dealing with stuff that doesn’t work. That’s my job. It feels so good when everything just does what it is supposed to do. I successfully backed my personal #iPhone to iCloud today for the first time in three years. It felt like victory, and it only cost $1,100.
Obsidian Tip of the Day: Three Templater Snippets for All Your Note Templates in #Obsidian
If you use the Templater community plugin (and you really should) you have three snippets available to you which provide a real asset in creating metadata in your note templates. These dynamic entries allow you to automatically add the creation date, modification date and note name to your new notes. Never again will you have to bear the indignity of a note that decides to call itself Untitled. To add these to your templates, edit them with source mode turned on instead of live preview which is the Obsidian default.
Note Name
This snippet gives you a pop-up when you first create your notes asking you to name it then. You type the name into the resulting dialog box and that’s that taken care of. (Note: This snippet goes at the very top of your note at Line 1. It creates the three tick marks that are the beginning of the code block for your properties.)
<%*
let title = tp.file.title
if (title.startsWith("Untitled")) {
title = await tp.system.prompt("Title");
await tp.file.rename(title);
}
tR += "---"
%>
Creation Date
This snippet will provide you with the creation date of your new note instead of the creation date of the template itself which is sometimes a problem when using dates in templates. If you use a different date format, replace the format here within the quotation marks.
<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Modification Date
This snippet will provide you with a properties field that will update itself whenever you edit a note. As above, if you use a different date format, replace the format here within the quotation marks.
<% tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
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Got my first same day Amazon order delivered today. I guess the future has arrived in the form of some USB-C cables.
I posted a shortcut on Routine Hub for capturing entire web pages in #Obsidian, including image links and a link back to the source article. You can create a new note or append to an existing one. Routine Hub | Download Web Pages to Obsidian
Copy down verbatim quotes, when you feel like it… I’ve shifted away from the dogma that “real” engagement means you must always summarise or restate things in your own words. If copying was good enough for history’s countless keepers of commonplace books, it’s sometimes good enough for me.
I love getting a new #iPhone but I also hate getting a new iPhone. At least I’m going through this in the comfort of my home and not an Apple Store 75 miles away, which is the unattractive alternative. But first, let’s update iOS before we restore your data. Just kill me now.
Worked with Google Gemini today on a python script for an hour that never worked. Meanwhile an anonymous human being on the #Obsidian forum solved my problem with a five-line dataview query.
There are exactly three potential outcomes for That Technology Thing You Like:
- It will be changed in ways that you don’t like by the person or company that owns or runs it.
- It will be sold to someone else and they will change it in ways that you don’t like.
- It will be discontinued. There are no other options. Prepare accordingly.
Automating Your #Obsidian Backup, Let Me Save You Some Hassle
The current sale underway at Bundlehunt offers over 40 Mac apps for under $5.00 apiece. There are some definite bargains but two I want to point out are Alarm Clock Pro and Lingon X. Both of these utilities offer a feature that comes in handy when setting up an automated backup solution for Obsidian. They can both launch applications according to a set schedule. If you are a Keyboard Maestro user, that can do it too, with the added benefit of also being able to close applications for you.
Sync Folders Pro
Keyboard Maestro launches an $8.99 app I got from from the Mac App Store to run an automated backup of my Obsidian vault every morning at 2:00AM. Sync Folders Pro It perfroms a one-way sync to a folder on my Google Drive, which in turn backs up the files to the cloud, giving me an offsite back up in case of theft or natural disaster. I’m planning to start using Dropbox instead of Google Drive because it offers file versioning. If you are a PC user, you can get Free File Sync which doesn’t offer a scheduler but is easy to set up and you just have to remember to run it manually on a regular schedule.

Obsidian Git
I also use the Obsidian Git community plugin. If you are a Mac user, save your self some hassle and install Git and Git Credential Manager via the terminal and Homebrew before setting up your backup. Failing to do so may result in annoying permissions errors when attempting to back up.
Install homebrew if you don’t already have it and then run the following command from terminal:
$ brew install git
To install Credential Manager use:
>```
brew install --cask git-credential-manager
Then use Github Desktop for Mac to create a private Git repository based on your Obsidian vault. You’ll need a free Git account to do this. Once you’ve got your repository set up and your initial upload done,install the plugin and you’ll have an automated real time back up of your files - with versioning. Danny Hatcher has a video to help you understand the procedure.
Time Machine

Of course, it’s a best practice to back uo your entire Mac regularly. Thankfully the bulit-in Mac backup utility, Time Machine makes it as easy as plugging in an external hard drive. I use a Sandisk 1TB portable SSD to back up my Macbook every night. See this Apple document for detailed instructions on Time Machine.
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The never-ending war against paywalls continues with a new resource, Archive Buttons with links to proven sites like archive.is and 12ft.io. I subscribe to several paywalled sites, like the NYT and WaPo but screw Medium. I ain’t paying for that.
Is there a person in the world that doesn’t hate their cell phone company? Trying to buy a new phone today only to be told my current plan won’t support it. WTF? I’m not going to call out my provider, but it starts with #Verizon.
What I Found on the Web This Week
This week’s bookmark collection includes a magnificent time suck at the Internet Archive, thanks to Jarrod Blundy from HeyDingus.net.. Also included are the YouTube channel of the week, the blog of the week as well as a helpful tool for skirting paywalls, a great article on the Fediverse, new AI tools and more.

Internet Artifacts
Summary: It’s an online museum with exhibits. Want to see the first SPAM email ever sent? It’s here. Want to see a diagram of the Internet when it was only 111 computers big? It’s here too. This site is extremely well done and prepared to cost you some curious time if you get sucked into it.

Hugging Face Assistants- Open AI offers custom GPTs to it’s $20 a month customers, but Hugging Face does the same for free. You can choose from a variety of fine-tunes helpers to accomplish anything from web design to cooking.

Archive.is
Summary: Archive.is is the ultimate tool for viewing paywalled material. I don’t even try to open Medium links anymore without pasting them into Archive.is. If you want to read something from the New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal, chances are you can find it already archived here. There’s even a browser extension to make it easier for you. You’ll thank me later for this one.

cyclelou/Amerpie: Downloadable Markdown files for Obsidian (github.com) - This is my personal quotes collection, broken down in separate markdown files suitable for importing into Obsidian
The fediverse, explained
Summary: The always excellent Davis Pierce interviews himself about our corner of the web. “The buzziest new thing in social networking is a big deal. It’s also very confusing. And it’s not actually new. Let’s talk about it.”

Marco Serafini - YouTube
Summary: Marco is this charming Italian guy who makes videos about Obsidian, note taking and PKM in general. I learned how to use some use plugins from his concise explanations of them.

Tracy Durnell
Summary - Tracy is a blogger and consultant in Seattle who does a great job on her personal blog. She wrote a series of posts on blogging around the first of the year I found personally very helpful:
Mount Katahdin, Maine in Baxter State Park - The day before I climbed it. The Northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.
I shit you not. We actually had a user call the help desk today to tell us she has a doctor’s note to excuse her from having to use two-factor authentication to log in to university resources. #techsupport
What little extras do you #Obsidian people add to your daily note? I have Templater snippets for a daily quote and to link to yesterday and tomorrow’s notes. I also have a dataview snippet for all the notes created that day and finally a plugin for Things 3 which lists all my completed tasks.
I live the cross-platform life, Windows by day. #MacOS at night. I need clipboard syncing with iOS on both. There are many Mac choices. I use PastePal. On the PC side, I use Clipboard Fusion and it just got its first update in five years! I hate it when much loved apps die on the vine.
If you’re looking for a way to save web pages to #Obsidian on mobile, check out this shortcut to save markdown to #Drafts routinehub.co/shortcut/…
On link management
Oh boy, what a rabbit hole we could go down here. Right now, my read-later links go to Pocket. My watch-later links go to Play. My listen-later links go to MusicBox. My reference-later links go to Raindrop. My write-later links go to Drafts. And my ‘Take a Chance’ links go to GoodLinks.
Just in case you need some, the only remaining seller of floppy disks in the world is US based Floppydisk.com who says their business isn’t threatened by the Japanese government’s recent decision to halt the use of the removeable media…yes in 2024.
I’ve been collecting quotes for years. Getting into #Obsidian has given me a new way to catalog them. Anyone out there want to trade ZIP files full of Markdown formatted quotes suitable for importing into an Obsidian vault?
Getting really good customer support from #Omnivore. They’re working with me to find a way to share from my RSS service, #Inoreader, right into my read-it-later service. I know they’ll eventually convert to paid, but damn, it’ll be worth it.
The Iconfactory just released a video about the API they’re building for Project Tapestry.
It’s a bold claim to say you can make a universal timeline for the Internet. But you can. And we have.
Three Plugins to Simplify Your Metadata Management in Obsidian
Introduction
In the world of markdown note-taking, maintaining tidy metadata in Obsidian is crucial for advanced functionality. Whether you rely on the Dataview plugin or embedded queries, properties play a vital role. Beyond functionality, having easy access to note information like creation dates and source URLs enhances your note-taking experience. Luckily, there are three powerful plugins that can streamline your metadata management in Obsidian: Linter, Metadata Menu and Multi Properties.
Linter Plugin—Streamline Your Defaults
Among the trio, Linter stands out as the most robust plugin. With enough customization, it can accomplish what the other two plugins offer. However, I prefer using Linter for general defaults while using the other plugins for specific cases. Linter excels at applying a default set of properties to all your notes, and I use the following essential properties:
>```
title:
url:
tags:
creation date:
modification date:
```
Furthermore, Linter offers the flexibility of adding additional properties, which it conveniently lists in alphabetical order. You can also choose the date format, with the recommended format being YYYY-MM-DD. Another impressive feature of Linter is its ability to move tags from the note body to the metadata section. Additionally, if you have older notes without properties, Linter excels in formatting existing YAML headers according to the new standards.
Metadata Menu—Customize Note Properties
For applying a specific set of properties to select notes, Metadata Menu is an excellent choice. Whether you want to group notes within a folder or classify them by a common tag, this plugin offers remarkable flexibility. While the Templater plugin can achieve similar functionality, Metadata Menu eliminates the need to learn special syntax. It’s worth noting that Templater can be less reliable on Mac systems. To learn more about how to leverage Metadata Menu effectively, check out Marco Serafini’s YouTube video.
Multi Properties—Quick and Easy
If you need a quick and effortless method to add properties on the go, the Multi Properties plugin is your go-to solution. Simply select a group of notes, right-click, and Multi Properties allows you to apply as many properties as desired. This feature allows you to assign specific tags or add property fields for note-specific data that you plan to fill in later.
Conclusion
By leveraging these three powerful plugins, you can automate a significant portion of your metadata management in Obsidian. This foundation will not only make your note-taking more effective, it will also allow you to harness Dataview and inline queries to amp up the effectiveness of your PKM system.
See all my Obsidian Tips
I wish I could make a filter that would work for the whole Internet. I’d never have to see another article on crypto or Apple Vison Pro or Donald Trump again. Not that those three things are alike, but they kind of are.
I’m retired from a career supporting Macs in K-12. My post-retirement “fun” job is in higher ed, supporting PCs. The CIO of the university thinks it would be a good idea for me to get a Microsoft certification to impress who, I don’t know. I’m going with the flow and watching CDB Nuggets videos. 😴
On Friday, it’s National Pizza Day. Or, as some bosses call it around the office, Please Don’t Unionize Day.
I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the Sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”
- Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant
Smart micro.blog people - How do I prevent double posting to Mastodon? I want to post as @amerpie@social.lol when I post on micro.blog and stop from posting as @amerpie@micro.blog. Is there a way?
OMG - my Open.AI account finally refunded, meaning I spent $5 since November 29 - with almost daily use of some sort.
How to Send an Email to Your Obsidian Vault
If you are a Mac user who doesn’t mind hacking together a few common services and applications, you can configure a way to use your email client, even on Windows or from iOS or Android, to get emails into your Obsidian vault.
What You’ll Need
Besides an email client and a working copy of Obsidian, you’ll need the following:
- An account at IFTTT.com
- An account at Dropbox
- A copy of Hazel by Noodlesoft Software
IFTTT

Start by enabling Email Integrations - Connect Your Apps with IFTTT. This will give you an email address to which you can forward emails to trigger this sequence of events. The specific applet you’ll need can be access here.
Dropbox
You can use any folder in your Dropbox account, just make sure it’s one where you’ve set up selective sync so the file actually ends up on your hard drive and not in the shadowy netherworld where Apple currently likes to relegate files from cloud services. I like to use a free Dropbox client from Maestral that actually lets me keep my files in the root of my home directory instead in the cloud services folder in the ~/library.
Hazel
If you aren’t familiar with Hazel by Noodlesoft, it is is a utility software for macOS that automates file organization and management tasks based on user-defined rules. It can perform actions like moving, renaming, deleting files, running scripts, and more, based on various criteria such as name, type, date, or content.

The rule you’ll make will rename the text file you created by emailing the IFTTT address. It will give the file a “.md” extension so that Obsidian will recognize it. Then it will move the renamed file into a folder you choose within your Obsidian vault. Mine is originally named “Email”. This works best if you a Mac that’s always on, but if you don’t, Hazel will run the rule as soon as you log in to you device.
Another Method
Quick and Dirty Prototyp- Receive Mail for Obsidian - dit und dat
See all my Obsidian Tips
If you’ve been wondering if you should watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith…yeah, you should. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine have some of the best chemistry I’ve even seen on screen!
Why the Right Hates Public Education
I wrote this 10 years ago today and it’s just as true today as it was then.
Well, I’m just going to say it. Here’s why education is under attack…And why the legislature is getting away with it. 1) There is a nationwide movement under way to characterize all public employees as lazy and overpaid 2) Teaching is still seen as a woman’s profession 3) The media and its consumers love stories about how our students are underperforming without actually investigating the validity of those claims 4) Education is the largest part of the state budget. Any money saved there can be used for tax cuts. 5) Channeling money to religious schools through vouchers panders to the religious right.6) The right-wing legislators who caused this get elected because too many voters are convinced that ALL tax money goes to lazy poor people.
The weekly update to my /now page, with my thoughts on True Detective: Night Country, some of what I’ve written this week, info on cross posting exploration and what I’m enjoying. Amerpie/now
I put together an updated collection of links to share, part blogroll, part blogging tools, part web geek fun stuff, part curiosities. It’s my first shot at something like this but it’s something i enjoy adding to each morning over a cup of coffee. Amerpie’s Bookmark Page
Phanpy - A Web-Based Mastodon Client with Features You Have to Pay for Elsewhere - Check it out!

Summary - A web-based Mastodon client with some useful features; 1) Visually separate original posts and re-shared posts (boosted posts), 2) Nested comments thread - Effortlessly follow conversations. Semi-collapsible replies. 3)Similar notifications are grouped and collapsed to reduce clutter. 4) By default, single column for zen-mode seekers. Configurable multi-column for power users. 5)Up to 5 hashtags combined into a single timeline.
Google just killed cached pages
Whenever Google crawled a web page, the company would take and store a snapshot, giving users an archived view. The feature acted as backup, allowing you to load a website in the event it was down. In addition, it made it easy to compare and see if any changes had been made to a web page.
App of the Day: Due, a Hybrid Reminders and Alarm Clock App
Due is a hybrid of a reminders app and an alarm clock. You can set one time or persistent reminders for things like moving the trash to the curb, clocking in or out at work, changing the filter in your Britta, the time you need to make a phone call or visit someone’s office. You can’t ignore Due. It’s alarms repeat every minute on the minute until you turn them off, up to five times by default and configurable up to ten times. It also has reusable precise countdown timers for things you repeat constantly like brewing tea. It has natural language input capabilities. It’s a snap to set up a reminder on the fly. It cost $7.99 for all the features it has right now and has an IAP to insure your rights to upgrades. There is even a Mac app that syncs via iCloud. I’ve had Due on my homescreen since iOS 4. You should add it to yours.
Something big is being announced by the Browser Company today #Arc = just got an email full of promises:
- Our belief in a new category of software
- 4 new features that hint at the next chapter for Arc
- And what we mean by a browser that browses for you
# Two Helpful Dataview Snippets for Obsidian
I like to have a note in my vault that shows all the notes created on the current day. I’ve been using a query that I have to update each day with the new date but I recently got a great tip from the Obsidian forum. Now I have a dynamically updated note that resets each day at midnight. You can use the dataview query below to achieve the same thing. (Note - You must have the dataview community plugin installed)
```dataview
LIST WHERE contains(creation-date, date(today))
SORT file.name DESC
```
To further this idea, I decided I’d like to have a section of my daily note listing all the files created on that particular day. Obviously, i can’t use a dynamic variable for this or the data would change depending on what date I opened the note. Returning once again to the Obsidian forum, I got the solution to this problem as well. I use the following dataview query under a level two heading of “Notes Created Today”
```dataview
LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
```
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I was going to delete Indie App Santa from my phone as all good things come to an end but I’ll be damned if the folks behind it haven’t managed to keep it going. Who doesn’t love a deal (or a gift)?
I knew this day was coming. I’ve been using #Evernote for 16 years. It’s integration with IFTTT, the web clipper and the mail to Evernote feature are all valuable parts of my workflow. I’m trying to rely on #Obsidian these days but I think I’ll bite the bullet and pay for one more year.
To worship at the altar of mega-scale and to convince yourself that you should be the one making world-historic decisions on behalf of a global citizenry that did not elect you and may not share your values or lack thereof, you have to dispense with numerous inconveniences—humility and nuance among them.
THE RISE OF TECHNO-AUTHORITARIANISM, The Atlantic
The geek in me is celebrating the conversion of a 236-line CSV file to markdown files this morning. Now the quote collection I’ve been piecing together for years is in #Obsidian instead of an iOS app that’s been deprecated since 2016. It’s the little things.
If you don’t harbour a deep-seated, conflicted, fundamental resentment for tech, well… you’re probably not a very dedicated geek.
Matt Gemmell
So, IFTTT just raised prices by 33% and you know what, I’m just going to pay it and keep going. I get so much value out of the automations I have set up. I need them to make my emails to #Obsidian work. Another plus, their tech support stays with problems until they are resolved.
Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet - by Chris Dixon, explores the possible when internet services are controlled by users instead of CEOs. What? Social networks that reward users for engagement, games that let players keep their loot, AI tools that pay artists for their work.
Maybe your picture of a sunset looks basically (or even exactly) the same as a thousand other peoples' photos of sunsets, but the journey you took to get to the place where you took that photo is not the same as that taken by all those other photographers. You met different people along the way, you felt different emotions, you learned different things. That is what makes you unique.
Pete Brown Exploding Comma
I had to wait for my wife to get back from a trip to start the latest season of True Detective but now that I’m into it, I’m going to have a hard time waiting for new episodes to drop. It’s good.
I updated my LinkedIn profile for the first time in ten years. It’s changed a lot in a decade and I’m not sure it’s all for good.
The new [Arc Search](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6472513080) app for iOS
The new Arc Search app for iOS is better than just a chatbot on top of a search engine. It builds you a web page (with sources) to answer your search queries. The info it provides is up-to-date and easier to access than scanning a list of possible related links.
We build these crazy contraptions using fifty different sets of mismatched tools, connect them all together with chewing gum and twine, and then pile billions of bits of junk on top of them. Of course, none of it is going to work properly. TBH most of the time I’m surprised any of it even works at all.
The easiest way to capture a screenshot on an iPhone is to say “Hey Siri, screenshot this.” It’s hands-free and idiot proof.
When I was growing up this gentrified street was a mess of GIs, prostitutes and street hustlers - not fountains and flower pots.
The Installer from the Verge
We all get too much email. It’s tough finding a worthwhile newsletter because most are filled with links to buy crap we aren’t looking for. Occasionally, we find something decent and one I’ve found is The Installer from David Pierce at the Verge. It’s a weekly collection of worthy recommendations for apps, tech and entertainment. I read every edition all the way through.
I’m tired of worrying about Apple and the EU. It’s time for some effin cuteness Reader Chosen:100 Cutest Photos
The Omnivore to Obsidian Connection Enhanced
Taking Advantage of Omnivore
One of the people I follow on Micro.blog - the prolific creator @numericcitizen had a great idea recently:
I just realized that I could (and should) use Raycast AI to summarize articles saved into Omnivore and save the summary into the article notes. Then, I could finish up the metadata with appropriate tags. I used to do that within Craft before, but the Craft AI assistant uses GPT 3.5, limits the length of the input into the summarize request and doesn’t support “real tags” like in Omnivore.
The Omnivore to Obsidian Connection
Now I have a Raycast Pro subscription so I get to use the AI features and I use the Omnivore plugin for Obsidian. I recently realized that I could edit the plugin settings and have the content of the articles I save to Omnivore automatically imported into Obsidian by changing the default script in the plugin settings. The script is use is:
{{{title}}}
Omnivore
{{{note}}}
[Read on Omnivore]({{{omnivoreUrl}}})
[Read Original]({{{originalUrl}}})
{{{content}}}
I tried a few variations becauseI wanted my notes imported too but I kept breaking things, causing the plugin to stop fetching articles so I left well enough alone.
While I was customizing things, I went ahead and set my YAML properties to a custom set too, also done in the plugin settings (advanced). This brings in my tags from Omnivore so I no longer have to tag articles in Omnivore and Obsidian. I wanted it to automatically populate the original url in the front matter, but it insists in only doing it in the body of the article. Maybe I’ll contact the developer for help with that.
title: >
{{{title}}}
{{#author}}
{{original_url}} >
{{/original_url}}
author: >
{{{author}}}
{{/author}}
{{#labels.length}}
tags:
{{#labels}} - {{{name}}}
{{/labels}}
{{/labels.length}}
date_saved: {{{dateSaved}}}
{{#datePublished}}
date_published: {{{datePublished}}}
{{/datePublished}}
id: {{{id}}}
Introducing Raycast
To get Raycast to write a summary of the web page is simple. I invoke Raycast from the keyboard and issue the AI command - which is also AI. Then I just type “summarize+ THE URL”. Almost immediately it spits out a one paragraph summary which I copy to the clipboard and paste into Obsidian as a quote. I also use the Obsidian callout function to draw attention the the quote.
[!Summary] TL;DR
Summary by ChatGPT
One Last Tip
If, like me, you use the news letter and RSS feed features in Omnivore, you can prevent those from being imported into Obsidian if you want. In the plugin settings set your Filter to Advanced and set a custom type:article and then you’ll get nothing imported but those articles you specifically save to Omnivore.

See all my Obsidian Tips
I rode by this house a thousand times on my bicycle before ever stopping to realize how cool it looks.
Yet another “Link in Bio” service - but this one was just announced as Product of the Year on Product Hunt. Check it out - Amerpie on Bento
#MyFirstMac - The school system I worked for supplied me with a brand-new titanium Powerbook G4 in 2001. It was an amazing computer and dual booted OS X and OS 9.22. I used it to manage and configure some of the earliest versions of Mac OS X server.
32-Bit Cafe - Website Ideas You’ve just made a website, but now you’re unsure where to go from here. Here are some ideas for things to add and techniques to earn. It’s a good list.
Courtey of Jack Baty.
I found a new website launched yesterday for all the #Obsidian fans out there - Obsidian Addict
found a good Mastodon tool last night - Followgraph. It looks up all the people you follow on Mastodon, and then who they follow. Then it sorts them by the number of mutuals, or otherwise by how popular those accounts are. It then shows the list with Mastodon links to follow them. Followgraph
Updated my /now page with quotes from the best stuff I read this week, what I’m watching, what I’m making and where I’m eating. amerpie.omg.lol/now
An update to a classic article on how to make the web less annoying, Full of good tools and tips for escaping the evils of overly commercialized content. How to get around paywalls and overlays and other crap
Married Software
My wife and I both sit at a computer for most of our work day. Our mornings and nights also include a fair amount of screen time. Even our non-technology interests involve technology. Carol is an avid ultra-marathon runner and takes full advantage of various fitness trackers as well as Strava and Training Peaks. Since I bought my first PC thirty years ago, I’ve been a passionate hobbyist and transitioned in my twenties to a career in educational tech. We’ve found apps and services to complement our 21st century lifestyle. I thought I’d share our use cases in hopes that others might find them useful.

Evernote, The OG
In the first six months of our relationship, we kept a shared Evernote notebook where we wrote each other letters. I wrote poems. She wrote explanations of things I didn’t understand. Twelve years later, we don’t add to that notebook any more but you better believe I still have it for a super-sweet way to look back on those days. On our honeymoon, we hiked the Appalachian Trail - the whole thing, 2189.9 miles from Georgia to Maine. We kept a blog of the experience, written in Evernote each night in our tent or shelter. She doesn’t use Evernote any more although despite the sharply rising price, I still have a pro subscription, although most of my note taking happens in Obsidian these days.
Apple Family Sharing
At home we are an Apple family through away. We’re armed with Macbooks, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and an Apple TV. It only makes sense to use the Apple Family Sharing plan to get more use out of the apps we (I) buy, a joint Apple Music subscription and 2TB of shared iCloud storage. We also rely on iMessage as our main text communication. We keep separate iCloud photo libraries because we use Amazon Photos for unlimited joint storage of not only our phone pics and videos but also shots she takes with her DSLR.

Anylist
For more than a decade, we’ve used Anylistto manage our grocery shopping. It’s got an iOS app, a Mac app and a web interface for when we are at work forced to use a PC. As the chief cook at our house I also use it’s recipe import and storage capability, which rivals that of the better known Paprika. We even use Anylist to keep our reusable packing lists for trips to her races, camping trips and other travel. Anylist integrates with Amazon’s Alexa app on the Echo so we can just tell her to add things to the shopping list while we are in the kitchen. It also integrates with Apple Reminders so I can tell Siri to add things to lists as well.

All Aboard
I discovered the Aboard app in a blog post by Chris Huerta. This free app is the medium we use to share information that use to get lost in a sea of texts. When I find an app, restaurant, movie or TV show to suggest, I use the iOS share sheet to add it to Aboard. My wife gets a notification and the app provides a way to comment on the link. We can also share photos and documents to Aboard. It even has a browser extension so we can both add things while we work on our PCs.

Amazon and Alexa
As I mentioned, we use an Amazon Echo, specifically an Echo Show 15, in our kitchen. It’s the digital message board for our house with a visual representation of our family shopping list, our joint todo list, a collection of family photos and a constantly updated weather report. We use a joint Amazon account, which allows us to also share Kindle e-books and Audible audio books. We’ve been using those services so heavily and for so long that we have hundreds of each.
Surviving Passwords
Before Apple implemented shared passwords in Mac OS 14 (Sonoma) and iOS 17, we already had a method of securely keping and sharing passwords and other sensitive date with a LastPass Family Sharing Plan.It’s more full-featured than Keychain since it has the capability of storing secure notes and documents as well as passwords. One thing we’ve done is made sure that we both have access to each other’s LastPass vault if we become the lone survivor of our marriage. We’ve done the same with Apple and Google. Please make sure you do the same!

That’s Entertainment
We are 100% cord cutters. We’ve never subscribed to cable during an entire marriage. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve saved a lot of money because we subscibed to just about all the major streaming services: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, AppleTV+, Hulu and Disney. Of course we have the apps on our iOS devices and have been known to download shows to watch while we travel. Additionally we have digital subscriptions to The New York Times and Washington Post for news. This also gives me access to the NYT Cooking app and gives her a chance to play Wordle and other games.
Finance
No discussion of married life would be complete without bringing up finances. My wife is a CPA so she handles that side of our house. I get a budget for my app addiction. We were avid Mint users for years but sadly that service is at end of life. After much research, we decided to switch to Monarch Money. We both have the app on our phones. It tracks our balances, our credit cards and our investments.
Conclusion
It’s clear that technology plays a significant role in our daily lives, from work to play. As a couple with a shared passion for all things tech, we’ve found various apps and services that have seamlessly integrated into our 21st-century lifestyle. From the OG Evernote to Apple Family Sharing, Anylist, Aboard, Amazon and Alexa, shared passwords, entertainment, and finance, we’ve used these tools to enhance our efficiency and organization. We hope that by sharing our use cases, you may find these resources as valuable as we have. Embracing technology has undoubtedly enriched our lives, and we look forward to discovering even more cool solutions in the future. Here’s to a tech-savvy and connected future for all! If you have any tech-savvy tips or tools you’d like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you.
I have just discovered feedle - a search engine for RSS feeds. Look for what’s interesting to you. My search for #Obsidian information led me here. feedle.world
The Pogues - Shane MacGowan - Body of an American - to me this will always be the real theme music to #TheWire with apologies to Tom Waits' Way Down in the Hole
Finally got DNS fixed (because it’s always DNS) thanks to @manton and now amerpie.lol is a real thing
A fitting end to Fargo, Season 5. Everyone is right where they deserve to be. https://www.hulu.com/series/203cda1b-7919-40fb-ab36-1e45b3ed2a50?play=false&utm_source=shared_link
I’d use #KeyboardMaestro or #Raycast for snippets but #TextExpander is cross platform with #Windows and #iOS. The same snippets work everywhere. The new iOS version is currently in Beta on TestFlight.
One reason I love Inoreader as my RSS service is the filters they offer. I just stopped 107 articles about the Apple Vision Pro from appearing in my feed.
I work in a small IT shop at a private university, and we let our help desk person go last month. Somebody has to do password resets and I got picked. It’s first day of a new semester and I swear to god, no one can remember how to log in. For the eleventy-millionth time in my career I’m doing this.
Although there have been some truly remarkable US cop shows (#TheWire), the Brits seem to be the master of the genre. Case in point, the new Apple TV production of Criminal Record
If you like the floating notes concept in Raycast on the Mac, you’ll love this. Call it with a hotkey or menu bar click, have it stay on top of other apps and on all screens. Sync it with iCloud to access on your phone/iPad. Super useful as a scratch pad, text converter, clipboard extender etc. Scrap Paper
Today’s micro.blog challenge is figuring out how to configure DNS A Records and CNAME Records to point to the $1.50 domain I bought at Namecheap.
Getting Help on Mastodon
I had a good Mastodon experience yesterday. I posted about my frustration with the #Obsidian dataview plugin and by the end of the day @techlifeweb@indieweb.social sent me a web page that builds queries for you Dataview Query Builder Plus a couple of others posted their learning experiences. It was so positive.
I dusted off an iPad Air2 to use as a server for #Pushcut, an Apple #Shortcuts automation app. It’s maxed out at iOS 15.8 but I’m interested to see what fancy tricks I can figure out how to accomplish.Automation is such a time suck LOL
Open.AI opened up the GPT store today but only to plus subscribers. Those of us with pay as you go API keys are left out in the cold with the rest of the huddled masses. tinyurl.com/aicostmon…
Just installed Microsoft 365 for a new user and found out that it doesn’t include Outlook anymore. Evidently, they want you to get the “New Outlook” from the Windows store. Windows power user types are not going to be happy about that.
For all my fellow #Obsidian fans looking for resources, the Discord page has a post with nominations Obsidian related plugins, articles, videos, software etc bit.ly/48PxacE
The lack of an easy to configure #Obsidian browser extension is regrettable. I finally got one working on a PC today but on my Mac I’m still relying on a bookmarklet that routes to Drafts first.
Microsoft Edge Really Doesn't Suck

Last year, the small private university where I work purchased new laptops for the staff and I was charged with deploying them, a process that had me visiting over a hundred employee to help them back up and migrate their documents and settings, Including browser bookmarks. One of the first questions I asked each person was “What browser do you use?” Almost all of them told me Google Chrome. A few holdouts used Firefox and only one or two named Edge…and they weren’t the power users if you know what I mean.
I came to work at the university after being retired from the public school system for a couple of years. During my career I primarily supported Macs and I’d used one myself since the days of OS 9. This was my first extended experience working in a Microsoft centric environment. There are a few Macs on campus but overwhelmingly our users are PC based. When I started, I was assigned a Dell AIO desktop with Windows 10. I intuited that Edge had good integration with Microsoft 365, so I chose to use it despite having been primarily a Safari and Chrome user in the past. I can use any browser I want. My coworkers in the IT department use Brave, Firefox and Chrome but after my initial choice I’ve decided to stick with Edge and have in fact made it my default browser on my iPhone and my new M2 MacBook Air.
Why, you ask? Because despite what the world seems to believe, Edge really doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s variety of features make it one of my favorite pieces of software to use. Is it perfect? No. Like most Chromium based browsers it’s a memory hog. As a heavy user of Apple’s Shortcuts app on my phone and Mac, I find that most browser related workflows are written for Safari and don’t work as well in Edge. Still, the good overwhelmingly outweighs the bad. Edge has quite a few features that are cutting edge, if not unique.
Profiles
I have separate profiles for home and work. At work Edge, when signed into Microsoft 365 is managed, meaning I can install no extensions and save no passwords, but I do have ready access to all my documents in OneDrive, my Outlook email accounts our campus Intranet and more. I have a set of work-related bookmarks I use with this profile. I simultaneously open another browser window signed into a different Microsoft account and voila, I then have access to all my extensions, a different set of bookmarks and my bookmark manager of choice, LastPass, which also holds my credit card info in case I need to buy anything through the browser. I use the same personal profile at home so I can save things I want to reference at work in my extra browser window.
Workspaces
Within a profile, users can create collections, browser setups for unique use cases. I have one for general browsing with my go to collection of bookmarks in the bookmark (or favorites as Edge calls them) bar. I have another setup for blogging with a different set of bookmarks available in the bookmarks bar. Both workspaces share the same general set of bookmarks from the menu bar or toolbar button, so I don’t have to worry about syncing two collections. Tabs can be set to be remembered between sessions, so when I’m ready to work on a blog entry, I have tabs for Micro.blog omg.lol, and my Mastodon account. It’s all really handy and allows me to just open up the browser and go to work.
Extensions
Edge can use the same extensions available to Google Chrome and there’s a vast selection to choose from. I don’t find that running all the extensions I need slows Edge down appreciably, so I install what I need. Extensions are specific to the profile you are using, but workspaces within the same profile share the same extensions. You can create a different Mac and PC profile is you find yourself using extensions that are platform specific. Here’s what I use: .
- Omnivore - It’s the best read it later service around these days, featuring a mobile app with read aloud capability, newsletter subscription service, RSS feeds and a browser extension.
- Obsidian Web Clipper - I primarily use a bookmarklet for saving web content into Drafts on my Mac, but I use a different vault at work on my PC where Drafts isn’t available.
- Raindrop.io - I have a subscription and heartily endorse Raindrop.io for it’s cross platform support as well as it’s Evernote and IFTTT integration which really helps me when I’m researching anything
- Aboard - This is the extension for the app my wife and I use to share links with each other. When I find an app, a TV show, a news story or whatever, I put it into Aboard and she gets a notification and can check it out when she has time. It’s free and useful.
- Chrome Remote Desktop - This allows me to access my home computer from other locations. It’s free, easy to set up and use and reliable. I don’t know what people pay for Screens or TeamViewer subscriptions.
- UBlock Origin- The best ad blocker on the planet. 31,000,000 downloads can’t be wrong.
- Toby - My new tab extension. It makes it easy to save and open windows full of tabs on the go. I use the free version and even though I maintain my start.me page, I stick with Toby for new tabs.
- Velja - Works in conjunction with the Mac app of the same name to open URLs in other bowsers and apps (e.g., Slack, Teams, Zoom, Freetube etc)
Collections
One of the features in Edge I find really useful is available on the desktop and mobile version of the browser. You can create collections of bookmarks on the fly for things you want to investigate later but don’t necessarily want to save forever. I have five collections:
- Shopping - this is mostly a collection of Amazon pages I can keep separate from my Amazon wish list so my wife can’t see what I was thinking of getting her for her birthday
- Software - I’m an unembarrassed software nerd, always looking for the latest cool program to try out. I keep a running collection of pages of programs I want to look at.
- Windows - Most of my leisure browsing happens on my mac, but when I find something that might be useful on my day job, I save it to my Windows collection to investigate at work
- TV - When I come across a review of an upcoming television show, I add it to this collection. Once a week I read all the emails from streaming services and the web pages I’ve collected and i cultivate the viewing list for my wife and I
- Reading List - I use a read it later app (Omnivore) but sometimes I just add a news article or How-to guide to my reading list collection if it’s something I know I’ll just read in my browser.
Other features I like
As I mentioned earlier, one of the best kept secrets of using a computer in 2024 is the free access to Chat-GPT4 built into Bing/CoPilot. There are people out there paying $20 a month to do what they can do for free with CoPilot and it’s built right into Edge. I personally have an API subscription to Open.AI, which runs me about a dollar a month so I can use the API key in other apps like Raycast and Obsidian.
The mobile version of Edge is good enough to be my default browser in iOS 17. Edge has a feature to send tabs to other devices and I use it all the time between my work computer, phone and MacBook at home. I have full access to my browser bookmarks on my phone as well as my history. Since I use a password manager for passwords, I don’t worry about browser saved passwords.
I know that Safari introduced profiles last year with the release of Sonoma and I know Chrome has access to the same browser extensions, but I just find that in my environment - Windows at work, Mac at home and consistent iPhone use, Edge has a set of features that work reliably for me. The browser receives constant updates and allows users to download separate beta and canary versions if they want. Hopefully you’ve found something in this review that might give you a reason to give Edge a tryout.
After reading about the massive amount of cash @jarrod spent testing his awesome new AI powered multimedia uploading shortcut, bit.ly/3H9Gtbg, (a buck and some change), I wonder why anyone is paying full subscription price for Open.AI when pay as you go is so much cheaper
Drafts by Agile Tortoise
It’s crazy how many things can be automated by the app Drafts | Where Text Starts (getdrafts.com)
I’ve been using it for years to move text into Evernote and Day One Journal App (dayoneapp.com) but it’s only been in the past few months that I’ve investigated it’s power on both my phone (where it’s in my dock) and Macbook (where it launches when I log in).
The list of apps I now use it with is growing:
- Files - Dropbox
- Personal Cloud Storage & File Sharing Platform - Google
- Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking ( a lot!)
- Flexibits | Fantastical | The calendar and tasks app you won’t be able to live without.
- Due - Reminders & Timers on the App Store (apple.com)
- Things - To-Do List for Mac & iOS (culturedcode.com)
- Simplenote
- omg.lol - A lovable web page and email address, just for you (home.omg.lol)
- Micro.blog
- Get Thoughts (thoughts-app.com)
It also has a lot of text editing and markdown functionality. It’s $20 a year for everything but there is a free version with a more limited feature set.
Spaces vs. Workspace
I keep seeing plugs for Spaces for macOS. I have access to what appears to be a similar app, Workspaces on Setapp | Your things well-organized. Has anyone tried both and know the difference?
Amerpie's Default Apps 2024
Default Apps
Shortly after this trend started, I discovered Robb Knight’s collection of posts at https://defaults.rknight.me/. I imported the blogroll into Inoreader and used that as the springboard that led to me opening a Micro.blog account. It’s only fitting that I add my collection to the list.
- 📨 Mail Client: Personal - Gmail since 2005 / Work Outlook via Office365
- 📮 Mail Server: Gmail
- 📝 Notes: Obsidian and Evernote, to which I feel locked in
- ✅ To-do: Things3
- 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: ProCamera
- 🟦 Photo Management: Photos.app
- 📆 Calendar: Fantastical legacy features, not paid
- 📁 Cloud File Storage: Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox
- 📖 RSS: Inoreader, sometimes Reeder5
- 🙎🏻♂️ Contacts: Cardhop
- 🌐 Browser: Microsoft Edge
- 💬 Chat: Messages.app
- 🔖 Bookmarks:Raindrop.io
- 📑 Read It Later: Omnivore and Pocket
- 📜 Word Processing: Microsoft Word and Drafts
- 📈 Spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel, only at work
- 📊 Presentations: nope
- 🛒 Shopping Lists: Anylist, a great app!
- 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Monarch on Mac and iOS
- 📰 News: New York Times, Google News, Inoreader
- 🎵 Music: Apple Music
- 🎤 Podcasts: Overcast
- 🔐 Password Management: Lastpass), shared with wife
- 🐘 Mastodon:Ivory, social.lol
- 🚀 Launcher: Raycast, paid mostly to use the Daily Log
- 🎞️ Media Tracking: Trakt via Watcht
- 💻 Screenshot Tool: Cleanshot X
- ✍🏻 Blogging: Micro.blog, OMG.LOL
- 🔗 Website: Amerpie
- ⚙️ Automation: Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, Popclip, Better Touch Tool
Blame it on RSS
Over the past two months I’ve rediscovered my love of RSS after a multi-year lapse. Since I’ve been gone the whole IndieWeb scene has blossomed and become something I very much want to take part in. To that end, I bought an el-cheapo domain, signed up here and have done pretty much nothing but dream about the Internet all day. I’m looking forward to taking part , learning from some smart people and finding a way to share a few things along the way, mostly about technology.






















